tllliki! 


m»\ 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS: 


THEIR  AGENTS,  AND  THEIR  RESULTS. 


BY 

T.  W.  M.  MARSHALL. 


A  FRUCTIBU8  EORUM  COGNO6CETI8  EOS.— S.  MATT.  vn.  1ft. 


VOL  I. 


NEW   YORK: 
D.  &  J.  SADLIER  &   CO.,  31    BARCLAY    STREET. 

MONTREAL :  COR.  NOTRE-DAME  AND  ST.  FRANCIS  XAVIER  8T8. 

MRS.    HICKKT,    128   FKDKFAL   STREET,   B06TOX. 

1864. 


V,   I 

X 


RENNIK,  SHEA  &  LINDSAY, 

BTBBMOTYFIRS  AMD  ELKCTKOTYPEU.  GKO.  W,  WOOD,  PRINTUL, 

81, 83  &  85  CENTRE-STBKKT,  No.  2  Dutch-st.,  N.  Y. 

NEW  YORK. 


B 

brary 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


CHAPTEE  I. 


THE   BIBLE    AND   THE   HEATHEN. 


FROM  the  beginning  men  have  disputed  with  the  Church  her 
right  to  teach  the  nations.  Human  societies  have  demanded 
to  share,  when  they  have  not  claimed  to  usurp,  her  royal  pre- 
rogatives. Even  the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles  has  not  seemed 
to  them  too  arduous  an  enterprise.  The  Divine  commission, 
Go,  teach  all  nations^  they  anticipated  before  it  was  announced, 
or  interpreted  in  their  own  favor  afterwards.  And  if  in  this 
attempt,  at  one  time  to  rival,  at  another  to  supersede  the 
Church,  they  have  employed  methods  which  are  not  hers,  and 
agents  whom  she  could  only  reprove,  it  must  be  admitted  that, 
at  different  epochs,  and  by  various  means,  they  have  accom- 
plished their  designs.  Asia  still  bears  witness  to  the  prodigious 
expansion  of  Buddhist  missions,  while  the  disciples  of  Islam 
can  point  to  three  continents  in  which  they  have  contended  with 
success  against  the  disciples  of  the  Cross. 

Nor  have  these  strange  victories  been  gained  only  by  non- 
Christian  communities.  In  the  fourth  century,  according  to 
the  well-known  expression  of  St.  Jerome,  "  the  whole  world 
groaned  to  find  itself  Arian."  In  the  sixth,  Nestorianism  was 
preached  from  Nubia  .and  Abyssinia  to  the  coast  of  Coro- 
mandel  and  the  plains  of  Tartary.  And  though  Arius  died  the 
death  of  Judas,  and  Nestorius  was  devoured  by  worms  like 
Herod,  their  doctrines  were  eagerly  embraced  by  millions,  and 
their  conquests  included,  besides  Syrians,  Greeks,  and  Gauls, 
men  of  African,  Hindoo,  and  Mongolian  race. 

In  what,  then,  do  the  missions  of  the  Christian  Church  differ 
from  those  which,  in  point  of  numerical  success,  have  some- 
times equalled,  and  perhaps  in  one  case  surpassed,  her  own  ? 

2 


2  CHAPTKB   I. 

It  is  believed  that  a  sufficient  answer  to  tin's  question  will  be 
found  in  the  following  pages.  Meanwhile,  without  attempting 
to  investigate  the  mystery  of  Buddhist  or  Moslem  triumphs,  of 
which  all  Christians  agree  in  adopting  the  same  explanation,  it 
will  be  enough  to  observe  here,  that,  like  the  more  fugitive 
successes  of  Arian  or  ISTestorian  missions,  they  present  only 
points  of  contrast  with  those  which  won  Europe  to  the  faith, 
and  of  which  all  the  Christian  nations  of  the  world,  in  both 
hemispheres,  are  the  living  monuments.  Differing  in  their 
methods,  they  differ  still  more  conspicuously  in  their  agents. 
What  the  emissaries  of  other  creeds  have  been,  and  by  what 
power  they  have  reigned  among  men,  their  own  chronicles 
abundantly  reveal.  They  may  have  fascinated  thousands  by 
eloquence  of  speech  or  action  ;  they  may  even  have  displayed 
the  outward  show  of  many  virtues,  without  which  their  success 
would  have  been  impossible  ;  but  that  they  or  their  followers 
were  the  ministers  of  an  evangelical  law,  of  which  their  own 
life  was  the  consistent  and  harmonious  exposition,  no  Christian, 
of  whatever  sect,  is  tempted  to  believe.  The  success  of  such 
men,  even  if  it  had  been  ten  times  more  complete  and  durable, 
would  only  prove  that  Buddhism  or  Arianism  was  true,  by 
proving  at  the  same  time  that  Christianity  is  false. 

The  apostolic  missionary  and  his  disciple  belong  to  another 
type,  and  one  which  seems  hardly  subject  to  variation.  In 
them  all  the  members  of  the  human  family,  barbarian  as  well  as 
civilized,  discern  the  presence  of  gifts  which  belong  to  the 
supernatural  order,  and  of  graces  which  connect  them  by  an 
almost  visible  bond  with  the  unseen  world.  And  these  gifts 
and  graces,  as  the  facts  to  be  recorded  in  these  volumes  will 
convince  us,  have  not  faded  away  like  the  fitful  zeal  of  mis- 
sionaries of  another  order,  but  are  poured  out  as  lavishly  in  our 
own  generation  as  in  any  which  preceded  it.  It  is  by  this  token, 
and  not  by  numerical  success,  though  the  latter  will  almost 
always  accompany  it,  that  we  recognize  the  apostolic  commis- 
sion. St.  Paul  was  as  truly  an  Apostle  when  stoned  by  the 
rabble  at  Lystra,  as  when  loving  disciples  fell  on  his  neck  and 
kissed  him,  "  sorrowing  that  they  should  see  his  face  no  more." 
He  was  more  than  ever  the  chosen  servant  of  the  Most  High 
when,  with  fettered  limbs,  he  was  carried  out  to  be  slain.  And 
this  is  true  of  all  who,  from  that  day  to  our  own,  have  received 
his  vocation.  The  martyrs  of  1862,  the  latest  of  whom  we  have 
received  the  record,  and  the  disciples  who  accompanied  them  to 
the  stake,  were  precisely  such  men,  in  the  ardor  of  their  faith 
and  in  their  consummate  charity,  as  the  earlier  victims  who 
"  washed  their  robes  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  "  in  ages  long 
passed  away.  The  Church,  as  her  adversaries  complain,  does 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  3 

not  change  ;  and  both  her  apostles  and  her  neophytes,  who  still 
resemble  the  companions  of  St.  Stephen  and  St.  Paul,  share 
the  eulogy  of  this  familiar  reproach. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  communities,  once  full  of  impetuous 
life,  wThose  founders  were  astonished  at  their  own  success,  and 
seemed  for  a  moment  to  rival  even  those  mighty  "  fishers  of 
men"  who  had  toiled  obscurely  on  a  Syrian  lake  before  they 
cast  their  nets  in  a  wider  and  deeper  sea,  have  long  since 
passed  through  all  the  successive  phases  of  stagnation  and 
decay  which  make  up  the  history  of  every  human  institution. 
Buddhism,  after  swallowing  up  eastern  and  central  Asia,  re- 
lapsed into  mortal  lethargy,  and  has  not  gained  a  new  disciple 
in  a  thousand  years.  Arianism  survives  only,  disguised  under 
other  names,  in  the  various  Protestant  societies  which  date 
their  origin  from  the  sixteenth  century.  Nestorianism,  which 
in  our  own  day  has  seen  half  its  adherents  reconciled  to  the 
Church,  has  ceased  for  centuries  either  to  attempt  or  to  desire 
any  new  conquest.  Even  Islamism,  once  so  fierce  and  arrogant, 
displays  a  dying  energy  only  among  the  degraded  populations 
of  eastern  and  western  Africa,  while  in  Europe  its  decrepitude 
has  become  a  jest  and  a  proverb,  and  it  is  only  not  finally  cast 
out  because  the  rulers  of  the  earth  cannot  agree  what  to  put  in 
its  place. 

But  if  these  ancient  adversaries  of  the  Church,  who  so  often 
menaced  her  with  the  destruction  which  has  overtaken  them- 
selves, have  fallen  on  evil  days,  and  no  longer  seek  to  dispute 
the  supremacy  which  so  many  victories  have  won,  a  new  rival 
has  caught  up  their  blunted  weapons,  and  challenges  her  once 
more  to  the  combat  of  which,  as  of  old,  the  Gentile  world  is  to 
be  the  prize.  It  is  of  this  latest  combat  that  in  these  volumes 
we  shall  trace  the  history.  It  has  lasted  long  enough  to  enable 
us  to  do  so.  Less  than  a  century  has  elapsed  since  the  Protes- 
tant communities  of  Europe  and  America  commenced  this  war- 
fare, and  already,  by  the  confessions  of  their  own  agents  and 
advocates,  they  behold  the  issue  with  despair.  In  whatever 
region  of  the  earth  they  have  displayed  their  many-colored 
banner,  the  result,  as  their  own  witnesses  will  tell  us,  has  been 
everywhere  and  always-  the  same.  But  if  the  new  sects  have 
failed  to  emulate  the  numerical  success  of  Buddhist  or  Arian,  01 
Moslem  or  Nestorian  missions ;  if  they  have  labored  so  utterly 
in  vain  that  we  shall  have  to  search  for  other  than  .a  purely 
natural  explanation  of  failure  so  absolute  and  invariable,  they 
have  at  least  surpassed  all  their  predecessors  in  the  prodigious 
material  resources  which  they  have  brought  to  the  conflict,  and 
to  which,  before  we  enter  upon  its  history,  it  is  necessary  to 
give  our  attention. 


4  CHAPTER  I. 

The  administration  of  many  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  both 
of  Great  Britain  and  America,  may  be  compared,  as  respects 
the  number  of  their  agents  and  the  magnitude  of  their  resources, 
to  the  machinery  which  exists  for  the  government  of  some  of 
the  secondary  States  of  Europe.  Their  emissaries  are  reckoned 
by  thousands,  and  their  revenues  by  millions.  It  is  the  boast 
of  their  directors  and  advocates,  that  the  world  has  never  before 
witnessed  the  application  of  such  means  to  such  an  end.  "  The 
Apostles  would  have  triumphed,"  says  an  American  writer, 
alluding  to  the  multitude  of  Protestant  missionaries,  "  at  such 
an  array  of  champions."  "The  first  preachers  of  the  Gospel," 
he  adds,  referring  to  their  alliance  with  the  civil  power  and 
their  enormous  wealth,  "  lacked  all  these  advantages."* 

And  this  is  no  rhetorical  boast,  as  a  few  examples  will  con- 
vince us.  A  single  English  society  for  the  conversion  of  the 
heathen,  of  whose  vast  expenditure  we  shall  presently  have 
fuller  details,  consumes,  we  are  told,  forty  thousand  pounds 
annually  "  in  its  home  expenditure  alone,  before  one  preacher 
has  embarked  on  his  mission."!  The  revenue  of  this  corpora- 
tion, the  Church  Missionary  Society,  of  which  one-fourth  is 
absorbed  annually  by  its  own  officers,  amounted  in  1859  to 
one  hundred  and  sixty-three  thousand  pounds,  and  that  of  the 
Bible  Society,  devoted  to  kindred  objects,  to  one  hundred  and 
ninety-five  thousand  pounds;  so  that  these  two  institutions 
alone  received  about  three  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  pounds 
in  twelve  months,  or  nearly  one  thousand  pounds  per  diem,  and 
certainly  not  less,  since  their  foundation,  than  ten  millions 
sterling. 

In  1862,  the  English  Wesleyans,  who  were  already  spending 
one  hundred  thousand  pounds  annually  in  missions  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  employed  in  the  same  work  one 
hundred  and  thirty-seven  thousand  two  hundred  and  eighty 
pounds,  and  must  therefore  have  consumed  about  three  millions 
since  1840.  The  London  Missionary  Society,  as  far  back  as 
1839,  possessed  an  annual  income  of  eighty  thousand  pounds. 
The  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  is  known  to  have 
dealt  in  one  year  with  a  total  of  nearly  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand  pounds.  The  five  Societies  enumerated  have,  there- 
fore, disposed  of  about  seven  hundred  thousand  pounds  in  a 
single  year,  while  their  aggregate  expenditure  probably  exceeds 
twenty  millions. 

And  the  ratio  of  this  expenditure,  which  is  emulated  by  a 
multitude  of  similar  institutions  in  our  own  and  other  lands, 
appears  to  increase  every  year.  So  rapid  is  the  increment,  that 

*  Dr.  Stephen  Olin,  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  347  (1853.) 
f  See  The  Times,  January  18, 1860. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  5 

at  the  present  time,  "  the  working  capital "  of  English  societies 
alone  "  is  not  less,  year  by  year,  than  two  millions  of  money ;" 
and  of  this  almost  fabulous  revenue,  we  learn  from  the  same 
authority,  "  the  large  staff  of  well-paid  officers,  whose  existence 
depends  upon  the  success  of  this  system,"  absorb  for  their 
personal  share  "  25  per  cent."* 

It  is,  perhaps,  worthy  of  observation,  and  it  is  the  first  point 
in  the  contrast  which  we  shall  trace  hereafter  in  all  its  details, 
that  while  the  Protestant  Societies  of  England  alone  consume, 
according  to  the  statement  which  we  have  just  heard,  about 
half  a  million  per  annum,  and  one  of  them  forty  thousand 
pounds,  in  purely  domestic  expenditure,  the  entire  administra- 
tion of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith,  the  sole 
missionary  organization  of  the  Catholic  Church,f — including 
"  travelling  expenses,  salaries,  office  expenses,  rent,  registers, 
and  postage  of  the  correspondence  with  missions  over  the  whole 
globe," — cost,  in  the  year  1858,  rather  less  than  sixteen  hun- 
dred pounds. \ 

The  foreign,  as  might  be  anticipated,  is  still  more  profuse 
than  the  domestic  expenditure  of  missionary  bodies.  In  Tahiti, 
and  the  contiguous  islands,  the  English  missionaries  had 
already  received  and  spent  "  more  than  one  hundred  thousand 
pounds  sterling"  nearly  thirty  years  ago  ;§  with  no  other  result, 
as  we  shall  learn  hereafter,  than  to  destroy  two-thirds  of  the 
native  population,  and  to  deprive  the  rest  both  of  their  humble 

foods  and  of  their  natural  virtues.  In  the  Fijian  group  they 
ad  expended  more  than  seventy-five  thousand  pounds  up  to 
1860. 1  In  New  Zealand,  the  Wesleyans  alone  had  consumed 
eighty  thousand  pounds  before  1844,  and  probably  twice  as 
much  since.!"  Twenty  years  ago,  the  Church  Missionary  So- 
ciety were  spending  in  the  same  remote  dependency  more  than 
fourteen  thousand  a  year,  though  their  staff  only  consisted  of 
eight  missionaries  and  sixteen  catechists  ;**  and  as  early  as  1838 
the  total  expenditure  of  the  same  society  in  that  island  already 
amounted  to  two  hundred  thousand  pounds.ft  In  Hindostan, 
the  cost  of  missionary  operations,  including  the  expenditure  in 
missionary  schools,  has  amounted  to  three  millions  sterling  since 

*  The  Times,  January  17,  and  April  19,  1860. 

f  The  Leopoldine  Society  of  Austria  works  only  in  a  narrow  field,  and  with 
inconsiderable  resources. 

J  Annals  of  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith,  May  1859  ;  No.  120,  p.  157. 

§  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  viii.,  p.  107 ;  new  series. 

|  Viti,  by  Berthold  Seeman,  Ph.  D.,  &c.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  77. 

1  Brown's  New  Zealand;  app.,  p.  273. 

**  New  Zealand;  its  Advantages  and  Prospects;  by  Charles  Terry,  F.R.S., 
p.  189. 

\\  Dr.  Thomson's  New  Zealand,  vol.  i.,  part  2,  ch.  iv.,  p.  313. 


6  CHAPTER   I. 

1840.*  The  mere  "travelling  expenses"  of  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries to  the  East  amounted,  so  long  ago  as  1839,  to  "  two 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  pounds."f  Even  in  Australia, 
more  than  fifty  thousand  pounds  had  been  exhausted  in  mis- 
sions twenty  years  ago,  though  not  a  solitary  native  had  been 
converted  at  that  date,  nor  has  been  converted  since.:): 

The  profusion,  of  which  these  are  only  a  few  examples,  and 
which  appears  to  augment  year  by  year,  is  successfully  emulated 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  American  Board  of 
Foreign  Missions  expended,  in  a  few  years,  in  the  single  island 
of  Ceylon,  as  Lord  Torrington  reported  to  his  government, 
"  upwards  of  one  hundred  thousand  pounds."§  In  the  southern 
provinces  of  Armenia,  as  one  of  their  friends  relates,  five 
American  missionaries  dispose  of  u  about  fifty  thousand  dollars 
annually ;"  while  others  consume  in  their  missions  in  Turkey 
"three  times  that  arnount,"||  or  thirty  thousand  pounds  per 
annum.  In  the  distant  solitudes  of  Oregon,  one  of  their  sects 
spent  "  forty-two  thousand  dollars  in  a  single  year,"  though  the 
mission  was  subsequently  abandoned,  and  only  kt  inflicted  pain- 
ful disappointment  upon  the  society  and  its  supporters."^ 
Even  in  the  remote  islands  of  which  Honolulu  is  the  modest 
capital,  the  same  class  of  agents  had  received,  up  to  1853,  more 
than  fifty  thousand  pounds  in  salaries  alone ;  and  the  total 
"  cost  of  missionary  enterprise"  in  that  obscure  group  already 
exceeded,  by  the  same  date,  nine  hundred  thousand  dollars  ** 

One  of  the  objects  proposed  in  the  following  pages  is  to  trace 
the  results  of  this  vast  expenditure,  in  all  parts  of  the  world, 
and  to  examine,  chiefly  by  the  testimony  of  those  who  control 
and  direct  it,  what  proportion  there  is  between  those  results  and 
the  means  employed  to  obtain  them.  Nor  can  this  be  deemed 
a  capricious  or  needless  inquiry,  even  by  those  who  wisely  main- 
tain that  the  salvation  of  a  single  soul  cannot  be  purchased  at 
too  great  a  price.  It  is  precisely  the  incomparable  dignity  of 
the  object  in  view  which  justifies  the  proposed  inquiry,  and  lends 
to  it  all  its  interest.  And  when  we  find  it  asserted  by  grave  and 
impartial  writers,  members  of  various  Protestant  communities, 
that  the  general  result  of  such  costly  efforts  has  been  undeniable 
failure ;  nay,  even  in  too  many  cases,  that  "  the  European 
teachers  of  the  heathen  have  to  answer  for  more  evil  than  will 

*  British  India,  by  Montgomery  Martin,  chap,  v.,  p.  227  (1802.) 
f  Travels  in  S.  Eastern  Asia,  by  the  Rev.  Howard  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  p.  279. 
|  History  ofN.  8.  Wales,  by  T.  H.  Braim,  Esq.,  Principal  of  Sydney  College, 
vol.  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  237. 

S  Ceylon,  Past  and  Present,  by  Sir  George  Barrow,  ch.  vii.,  p.  162. 
|  Wagner's  Travels  in  Persia,  etc.,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  viii. 
1  Dr.  Olin's  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  427. 
**  Sandwich  Island  Notes,  by  A.  Haole,  app.,  p.  483. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN. 

ever  be  compensated  by  their  most  zealous  services ;' 
still  further  stimulated  to  pursue  an  investigation  which,  if 
fairly  and  honestly  conducted,  will  test  the  accuracy  of  such  for- 
midable statements.  If  we  "  compare  the  visible  results  ob- 
tained," says  a  Protestant  writer  who  has  devoted  special 
attention  to  this  subject,  "with  the  multiplied  machinery, 
urgency  of  appeal,  and  vast  expenditure,  with  which  the  mis- 
sions are  prosecuted,  it  must  be  owned  that  they  are  greatly 
disproportionate,'^  And  this  temperate  assertion  is  only  too 
amply  confirmed,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  course  of  these  pages,  by 
a  great  cloud  of  witnesses,  of  all  ranks  and  sects ;  so  that  the 
organ  of-one  of  the  most  influential  schools  of  Protestant  opinion 
in  England  does  not  scruple  to  declare,  in  the  year  1859,  that 
"  we  should  not  allow  a  few  isolated  instances  of  success,  here 
and  there,  to  blind  us  to  what  we  must  call,  to  speak  plainly, 
the  failure  of  missionary  efforts  in  modern  time$"\ 

It  is  our  purpose  to  trace,  in  every  region  of  the  earth,  both 
the  fact  of  this  admitted  failure  and  its  cause  ;  and  in  this  at- 
tempt we  shall  be  assisted,  almost  exclusively,  by  the  evidence 
of  Protestant  witnesses  of  all  classes  and  creeds, — English  and 
American,  German  and  French,  Swedish  and  Dutch  ;  historians 
and  naturalists,ci vil  and  military  officials,tourists  and  merchants, 
chaplains  and  missionaries.  And  whatever  may  be  the  difficulty . 
of  the  task,  however  tedious  the  research  which  it  involves,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  an  English  writer  enjoys  peculiar  facili- 
ties in  collecting  the  materials  for  such  a  work.  Not  only  is  the 
noble  passion  of  travel  and  adventure  the  special  characteristic 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  so  as  to  make  them  a  kind  of  marvel 
in  the  eyes  of  languid  and  incurious  foreigners ;  but  the  same 
restless  energy  which  impels  them  to  wander  in  all  lands,  fording 
every  river  and  scaling  every  mountain,  almost  invariably  issues 
in  a  book,  more  or  less  accurate  and  instructive  in  which  the 
impressions  of  the  traveller  are  recorded.  It  was  the  examina- 
tion of  many  such  volumes,  and  the  astonishing  unanimity  of 
their  authors,  in  spite  of  the  diversity  of  their  religious  opinions, 
in  one  point  alone,  which  first  suggested  the  idea  and  the  scheme 
of  the  work  which  is  now  offered  to  the  reader.  Yiewed  simply 
as  contributions  to  literature,  it  is  sometimes  possible  to  dispute 
the  value  and  importance  of  the  compositions  referred  to  ;  but 
considered  in  another  aspect,  this  army  of  active  and  voluble 
tourists,  clerical  and  lay,  may  be  regarded  as  witnesses  employed 
by  Divine  Providence,  without  their  knowledge  or  concurrence, 

*  Polynesia  and  New  Zealand,  by  the  Rt.  Rev.  M.  Russell,  ch.  iii.,  p.  113 ; 
second  edition,  1843. 

|  Bampton  Lectures  for  1843,  by  Anthony  Grant,  D.C.L.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  214. 
j  Ghi'istian  Remembrancer,  vol.  xxxvii.,  p.  69. 


8  CHAPTER   I. 

to  detect  and  announce  to  the  world  a  fact  which  the  eager 
passions  and  prejudices  of  men  would  otherwise  combine  to  con- 
ceal. It  is  this  fact,  momentous  in  itself,  and  in  the  conclusions 
which  it  peremptorily  suggests,  which  we  are  about  to  demon- 
strate by  ;mpartial  and  conclusive  testimony ;  and  we  might 
now  pr<  d  at  once  to  examine  that  testimony  in  detail,  but 
that  th  i  is  one  point  which  we  are  compelled  to  eliminate  from 
the  general  discussion,  and  which  may  be  most  conveniently 
noticed  in  this  place. 

In  comparing,  as  we  are  about  to-do,  the  influence  of  Catholic 
and  Protestant  missions  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  in  order  to 
apply  to  the  Church  and  the  Sects  a  new  and  supreme  test  which 
could  not  have  been  employed  at  an  earlier  date,  it  is  evident 
that,  besides  the  primary  question  of  results,  two  main  points, 
must  occupy  our  attention, — the  character  of  their  respective 
agents,  and  the  method  of  their  operations.  The  first  wrill 
receive  copious  illustration  in  the  course  of  these  volumes  ;  the 
second  must  be  considered  here. 

The  most  obvious  distinction,  amounting  to  a  direct  contrast, 
between  the  two  classes  of  missionaries,  is  found  in  the  instru- 
ment which  they  respectively  employ  in  their  attempts  to  con- 
vert the  heathen.  The  Catholic  Missionary,  imitating  the 
example  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Barnabas, — often  receiving  no 
salary,  and  always  less  than  the  wages  of  a  common  laborer, — 
presents  himself  without  fear  before  the  pagan  crowd,  and  in 
spite  of  menaces,  stripes,  and  death,  announces  to  them,  by  word 
of  mouth,  "  the  lively  oracles  of  God."  During  twenty,  thirty, 
or  forty  years,  he  accepts  without  repugnance  a  life  of  poverty 
and  toil ;  and  if  the  instruments  of  torture  are  one  day  arrayed 
before  his  eyes,  he  is  so  far  from  contemplating  them  with  sur- 
prise or  dismay,  that  he  has  often  begged  as  a  special  favor 
from  God,  before  entering  upon  the  apostolic  career,  that  he 
might  be  deemed  worthy  of  this  very  trial.  He  has  dared  to  ask 
that  he  might  find  grace  to  resemble  his  Master,  not  only  in  the 
tenor  of  his  life,  But  even  in  the  agony  of  his  death.  Many 
examples  will  teach  us,  in  the  course  of  these  pages,  how  such 
petitions  are  answered. 

The  Protestant  Missionary,  on  the  other  hand,  encumbered 
for  the  most  part  by  domestic  ties,  and  busy  with  the  incessant 
precautions  which  they  suggest  and  justify, — for  the  claims  of  a 
wile  and  family  are  sufficiently  sacred  and  imperious  to  precede 
all  others, — naturally  declines  to  enter  upon  a  course  so  dangerous 
and  difficult,  and  relies  chiefly  upon  the  circulation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  or  of  religious  tracts,  which  he  scatters  along  the 
coast,  or  dispatches  into  the  interior,  and  then  leaves  to  produce 
their  own  effect.  In  many  countries,  and  especially  in  China 


THE   BIBLE  AND  THE  HEATHEN.  9 

I 

and  the  Levant,  the  action  of  Protestant  missionaries  has  been 
almost  entirely  limited  to  this  distribution  of  books,  although, 
as  one  of  their  own  body  observes,  after  an  experience  prolonged 
through  several  years,  "it  seems  of  little  use  to  give  books 
profusely  without  abundant  personal  preaching  fl>  an  opinion 
which  he  confirms  by  the  forcible  remark, — "  It  is  qifc  -  evident 
too  that  the  Apostles  proceeded  in  this  manner."  *  *>  i » 

In  spite  of  this  impressive  fact,  Protestants  have  been  re- 
luctant to  abandon  their  favorite  method,  and  still  more  to 
admit  that  it  has  failed.  It  is  true,  as  even  they  have  con- 
fessed, that  the  project  of  converting  the  heathen  by  the  circu- 
lation of  books  derives  no  sanction  from  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles; 
and  that  it  was  a  widely  different  system  of  missionary  effort 
which,  in  less  than  three  centuries,  converted  the  Roman  world 
to  Christianity.  That  system  derived  its  supernatural  force 
from  the  fertilizing  blood  of  martyrs.  St.  John  the  Baptist,  the 
first  preacher  of  penance,  was  a  martyr.  All  the  Apostles, 
save  one,  were  martyrs.  Fifty-two  Roman  Pontiffs,  in  lineal 
succession  from  St.  Peter,  gave  their  lives  for  the  faith. 
The  only  three  great  names  in  the  first  age  of  Christianity 
which  are  not,  as  it  were,  written  in  blood,  are  those  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  St.  Mary  Magdalene,  and  St.  John,  who  alone 
stood  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross,  and  had  their  martyrdom  in  wit- 
nessing that  sight.  Christianity  was  preached  and  founded  in 
blood.  The  very  profession  of  the  true  Missionary  was,  and 
still  is,  to  die  for  the  salvation  of  souls.  By  no  other  process 
has  the  Gospel  conquered  the  world.  And  this  necessity  was 
implied  and  foreshadowed  in  the  Great  Atonement.  "  Sine 
sanguinis  effusione  non  jit  remis*io?^  The  apostles  of  the 
Crucified,  if  they  would  resemble  Him,  must  be  clothed  "  with 
dyed  garments,"  crimsoned,  like  the  seamless  robe  of  their 
Master,  with  their  own  blood.  "  It  is  not  to  Thabor  that  Jesus 
invites  you,"  cries  a  modern  missionary  to  some  who  were  con- 
templating the  apostolic  life,  "  but  to  Calvary,  and  to  death."  J 
He  had  a  right  to  say  it,  for  he  was  himself  a  member  of  a 
society  which,  in  leas  than  a  century,  gave  more  than  four  hun- 
dred martyrs  to  the  Church.  And  so  far  is  this  immutable  law 
of  the  Christian  apostolate,  that  the  souls  of  the  heathen  can 
only  be  purchased  by  blood,  from  being  reversed  in  our  own 
times,  that  there  have  perhaps  been  more  martyrdoms,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter,  in  the  last  three  centuries, — the  single 
empire  of  Annam  having  produced  sixteen  thousand  martyrs  in 

*  Travels  in  8.  Eastern  Asia,  by  the  Rev.  Howard  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  ii., 
p.  160. 

|  Heb.  ix.  22. 

I  Lettres  Edifiantes  et  Ourieuses,  tome  x.,  p.  376. 


10  CHAPTER   I. 

nine  months  of  the  year  1861, — than  in  any  equal  period  since 
the  persecutions  which  Tacitus  would  have  provoked  and  Pliny 
hardly  dissuaded,  which  successive  emperors  vainly  renewed, 
and  which  the  Roman  Senate  in  its  later  days  had  learned  to 
discourage,  because  even  the  heathen  began  to  understand  the 
mysterious  truth,  that  "  the  blood  of  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the 
Church." 

It  was  by  the  lavish  outpouring,  in  many  lands,  of  this  pre- 
cious and  vivifying  blood,  that  Christianity  fought  its  way  from 
Jerusalem  to  Rome,  and  from  Rome  to  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  empire.  So  little  share  had  the  Bible,  the  sole  instrument 
of  certain  modern  missions,  in  the  triumphs  of  that  tremendous 
conflict;  so  little  care  had  its  Divine  Author  to  provide  this 
weapon,  even  as  an  auxiliary,  in  that  mortal  strife;  that  it  did 
not  so  much  as  exist,  in  an  available  form,  tilt  the  battle  was 
over  and  the  victory  won,  till  the  successor  of  the  Fisherman 
had  finally  dethroned  the  Cgesars,  and  planted  the  cross  on  the 
capitol  which  they  had  forever  abandoned.  And  this  great 
historical  fact,  in  which  is  revealed  the  judgment  of  God  as  to 
the  real  use  and  office  of  His  word,  is  equally  true  of  the  later 
conversions,  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  from  the  fourth  to  the 
nineteenth  century,  which  owed  quite  as  little  as  the  holocausts 
of  earlier  days — the  myriad  martyrdoms  of  Rome,  Smyrna,  or 
Antioch — to  the  dispersion  of  the  Bible.  The  method  of  the 
first  Apostles,  as  well  as  of  the  successive  Evangelists  to  whom 
they  bequeathed  their  mission, — of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Andrew,  as 
of  St.  Augustine,  St.  Boniface,  and  St.  Francis. — was  pre- 
cisely that  which  is  still  followed  by  the  Catholic  missionary. 
They  evidently  neither  knew,  nor  desired  to  know,  any  other. 
That  books,  however  sacred  and  persuasive,  were  not  the 
appointed  instruments  for  such  a  work,  is  decisively  proved  by 
their  scanty  use  or  total  neglect  of  them ;  but  may  also  be  in- 
ferred from  the  significant  fact,  that  Providence  suffered  four- 
teen centuries  to  elapse,  and  the  Church  to  win  all  her  battles, 
before  the  art  of  printing,  by  which  alone  the  Scriptures  could 
be  adequately  multiplied,  was  revealed  to  man.  That  the  Bible, 
however  precious  to  Christians,  was  not  designed  by  its  Author 
even  to  assist  in  converting  the  heathen,  is  evident  from  these 
considerations, — that  the  world  received  it  too  late  for  any  such 
purpose ;  that  the  Apostles  and  their  successors  neither  made, 
nor  wished  to  make,  nor  could  have  made  if  they  had  wished, 
any  such  use  of  it ;  and  lastly,  that  "  the  prodigious  and  almost 
incredible  dispersion"  *  of  the  inspired  books  in  modern  times, 
of  which  we  shall  presently  furnish  examples,  has  so  utterly 

*  Dr.  Grant's  Bampton  Lectures. 


THE   BIBLE   AND  THE   HEATHEN.  11 

failed,  even  in  a  solitary  instance,  to  accomplish  that  result,  or 
to  promote  in  any  measure  the  interests  of  religion,  as  to  sug- 
gest to  thoughtful  and  learned  men  the  reflections  expressed  in 
the  following  words.  '"That  the  Bible,"  saysMoehler,  "cannot 
in  itself  constitute  a  settled,  outward  rule,  nor  was  ever  so  in- 
tended by  Christ,  no  one  surely,  after  the  awful  experience 
which,  in  our  times  especially,  has  been  made,  and  is  still  daily 
made,  will  feel  any  longer  disposed  to  deny."  *  "  In  spite  of  the 
innumerable  modern  expositions  of  the  Bible,"  observes  Dollin- 
ger,  "and  their  unquestionable  scientific  value,  far  from  having 
produced,  in  any  degree,  a  larger  amount  of  faith,  or  unity  of 
doctrine,  on  the  Protestant  side,  the  very  contrary  is  per- 
ceivable," f  Lastly,  Dr.  Grant,  after  a  careful  examination 
of  the  effect  of  Bible  distributions  in  promoting  Christian 
missions,  exclaims,  "  Surely  the  very  failure  that  has  attended 
the  mere  dispersion  of  the  sacred  Scriptures  among  the  heathen 
nations  might  satisfy  us,  that  it  was  not  designed  that  the 
Gospel  should  thus  win  its  triumphs."  J 

The  circulation  of  Bibles  continues,  however,  to  be  the 
characteristic  feature  of  Protestant  missions  to  the  heathen. 
The  agent  of  Protestant  missionary  societies  has  hitherto  de- 
clined to  take  any  part  in  the  terrible  warfare  of  apostles.  His 
life  belongs  to  his  family  ;  and  when  he  accepts  a  commission 
in  foreign  lands,  the  shedding  of  blood  forms  no  part  of  his  con- 
tract. It  is  confessed  by  general  consent,  that  the  obligations 
of  a  parent  justify  this  reserve;  and  the  world  is  so  far  from 
complaining  that  a  married  missionary  should  prefer  the  dis- 
tribution of  books  to  the  labors  and  perils  of  the  apostolate, 
that  his  own  employers  recommend  and  applaud  his  decision. 
i'  There  can  be  no  doubt,"  says  a  respectable  Anglican  writer, 
"  that  the  plan  of  circulating  the  sacred  Scriptures  is  infinitely 
preferable  to  that  of  a  mission  where  such  a  circulation  is 
not  a  primary  object."  §  They  are  still,  therefore,  distributed  in 
almost  countless  thousands  to  all  parts  of  the  earth,  and  the 
least  change  in  this  peculiar  system  of  propaganda  would  de- 
prive vast  numbers  of  Protestant  missionaries,  of  all  nations 
and  sects,  of  their  only  employment.  It  is  necessary  to  consider, 
on  this  account,  before  we  enter  upon  the  immediate  subject 
of  this  work,  three  preliminary  questions,  of  such  critical  im- 
portance in  estimating  the  character  of  Protestant  missions, 
that  the  answer  which  a  candid  scrutiny  will  elicit  suffices  to 
determine  absolutely,  without  further  inquiry,  their  real  nature 

*  Symbolism,  vol.  ii.,  p.  122 ;  ed.  Robertson. 

f  The  Church  and  tJie  Churches,  Introd.,  p.  13,  ed.  MacCabe. 

i  Bampton  Lectures,  iii.,  98.  . 

§  Christianity  in  India,  by  J.  W.  Cuningham,  M.A.,  p.  142. 


12  CHAPTER  I. 

and  influence.  The  three  questions  which  we  are  about  to 
examine  are  these :  (1 ),  To  what  extent  are  Bibles  and  tracts 
circulated  by  Protestant  missionaries?  (2),  What  is  the 
literary  value  of  the  various  translations  so  distributed  ?  (3), 
What  use  do  the  heathen  make  of  them?  In  attempting  to 
determine  the  special  character  of  missions  so  novel  in  their 
form  and  method,  as  well  as  to  trace  their  historical  results,  it 
was  impossible  either  to  avoid  or  postpone  this  inquiry. 

The  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  whose  operations  we 
shall  find  to  be  identified  with  those  of  Protestant  missions,* 
was  founded  in  1Y80.  Its  income,  which  in  that  year  was  five 
thousand  pounds,  soon  increased  twenty  fold,  and  in  1791  had 
already  reached  one  hundred  thousand  pounds.f  Haifa  century 
later,  its  annual  revenue  approached  two  hundred  thousand 
pounds,  and  it  distributed  in  a  single  year  nearly  one  million 
seven  hundred  thousand  Bibles.  But  this  is  only  one  institution, 
though  certainly  the  most  opulent,  out  of  thousands  established 
with  a  similar  object.  In  every  part  of  the  British  colonial 
possessions,  from  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  plains  of 
Bengal,  "  Auxiliary  Bible  Societies  "  exist,  whose  number  it 
would  be  nearly  impossible  to  define  exactly,  and  much  more 
their  aggregate  receipts.  "  The  people  of  England,"  says  Mr. 
Howitt,  u  spend  about  one  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  pounds 
annually  in  Bibles."  J  What  they  spend  in  other  countries, 
who  can  tell  ? 

To  determine  the  exact  number  of  Bibles  issued  annually,  in 
all  languages,  by  Protestant  agency,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
consult  the  reports  of  thousands  of  societies  scattered  all  over 
the  earth,  many  of  which  it  is  impossible  to  obtain  at  a  given 
moment.  Some  writers  estimate  the  total  issue,  by  all  sects-*- 
including  the  Baptists,  who  have  adopted  a  version  of  their 
own — as  nearly  one  hundred  million  copies ;  yet  even  this  is 
considered  only  a  beginning.  "  We  want  one  hundred  and 
thirty  million  Bibles,"  §  exclaimed  the  Rev.  Dr.  Plumer  not 
long  ago,  as  if  the  number  already  dispersed  were  hardly  worth 
reckoning  ;  and  the  want  will  no  doubt  be  supplied.  Wherever 
there  exists  a  human  being,  savage  or  civilized,  who  does  not 
possess  a  copy  of  the  Scriptures  in  his  own  tongue,  the  Bible 
Societies  recognize  a  claimant.  More  than  forty  years  ago,  the 
directors  of  the  American  Bible  Society  announced  that  their 
aim  was  "the  distribution  of  the  Bible  among  all  the  accessible 
population  of  the  globe,  within  the  shortest  practicable  period  ;" 

*  In  New  York  the  offices  of  the  Bible  Society  and  of  the  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  are  under  the  same  roof. 

f  History  of  the  B.  and  F.  Bible  Society,  by  the  Rev.  J.  Owen,  M.A. 

±  Colonization  and  Christianity,  ch.  xxvi.,  p.  448 

|  History  of  the  American  Bible  Society,  by  W.  P.  Strickland  ;  app.,  p.  371 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  13 

and  in  the  first  twenty  years,  while  their  organization  was  still 
incomplete,  they  expended  more  than  six  hundred  thousand 
pounds,  and  distributed  upwards  of  three  million  copies. 
"  Four  hundred  and  forty  thousand  Siamese,"  says  Mr.  Strick- 
land, "  were  represented  as  being  ready  for  the  Bible  in  1833." 
He  does  not  say  how  they  manifested  their  readiness,  and  con- 
sidering the  singular  use  they  have  made  of  the  Bibles  already 
distributed  to  them,  we  may  perhaps  infer  that  the  Siamese  are 
able  to  wait  without  impatience  for  the  rest.  What  is  the 
number  of  Bibles  which  they,  and  other  barbarians,  have 
already  received,  and  what  they  have  done  with  them,  we  shall 
learn  presently. 

But  it  is  not  only  Bibles  which  are  dispatched  in  millions  to 
every  shore,  deposited  by  the  river  banks  of  both  continents,  or 
accumulated  in  vast  piles  in  the  seaport  towns  of  Asia  and 
America;  religious  tracts  also,  destined  to  supplement  and 
illustrate  the  sacred  writings,  are  lavished  upon  the  heathen 
world  in  still  greater  profusion.  The  Religious  Tract  Society 
of  England,  we  are  told,  issued  in  the  single  year  1861  more 
than  forty-one  million,  and  since  its  foundation  nearly  one 
thousand  million  tracts*  And  this  is  only  one  of  many  similar 
institutions.  "  The  Swedish  Tract  Society,"  more  reserved  in 
its  operations,  still  counts  its  distribution  by  millions.f  The 
"  American  Tract  Society  "  had  already  printed,  twenty-five 
years  ago,  and  they  have  been  printing  ever  since  at  an 
increased  rate,  "  thirty-six  millions  of  copies,  and  of  the 
volumes  nearly  thirty-four  millions."  The  kindred  society  at 
Boston  had  also  issued,  by  way  of  inaugurating  their  foundation, 
fourteen  million  five  hundred  thousand  seven  hundred  and  forty 
pages ;  and  the  writer  from  whom  these  details  are  borrowed 
gives  a  list  of  a  few  of  the  American  societies  which,  in  the 
course  of  a  single  year,  had  collected  nearly  one  million  dollars.  \ 
And  even  these  vast  revenues  hardly  suffice  to  defray  the  cost 
of  operations  which  are  on  such  a  gigantic  scale  that,  as  Mr. 
Putnam  inforins  us,  in  a  well-known  work,  the  single  Society 
of  American  Missions  had  printed,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years, 
"  nearly  four  hundred  million  pages  ;"§  their  whole  issue, 
between  1812  and  1861,  amounting  to  "  over  one  thousand  five 
hundred  million  pages," [  or  jive  million  volumes  of  three 
hundred  pages  each.  This  was  the  almost  fabulous  work  of 

*  Jlhe  Times,  June  13,  1862. 

f  Home  Life  in  Norway  and  Sweden,  by  Charles  Loring  Brace,  ch.xi.,  p.  160 
(1857). 

\  visit  to  the  American  Churches,  by  Andrew  Reed,  D.D.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  166. 

§  Putnam's  American  Facts,  p.  55 

|  Report  of  American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  1861 ;  quoted  in  New 
York  Evening  Express,  February  21, 1861. 


14:  CHAPTER   I. 

one  only  of  the  innumerable  associations  employed  simulta- 
neously in  all  parts  of  the  world  in  promoting  the  same  design, 
and  most  of  which  are  constantly  assuming  still  wider  propor- 
tions. Let  us  come  to  a  few  examples  of  the  measure  in  which 
different  countries  and  nations  share  in  this  distribution  of 
'Bibles  and  tracts,  .the  prodigious  extent  of  which  is  rather 
obscured  than  explained  by  mere  general  statements.  The 
circulation  of  books,  we  have  said,  is  the  characteristic  feature 
of  Protestant  missions  ;  let  us  endeavor  to  trace,  by  Protestant 
testimony,  in  all  the  spheres  of  missionary  labor  which  we  are 
hereafter  to  visit,  their  number,  their  value,  and  their  effect. 


CHINA. 

I.  In  China,  during  the  latter  half  of  the  single  year  1 844,  the 
Protestant  tracts  scattered  amongst  the  natives  filled  more  than 
eleven  hundred  thousand  pages,  or  nearly  four  thousand  volumes 
of  three  hundred  pages  each  ;  and  this,  which  might  have  satis- 
fied the  wants  of  a  century,  was  only  the  work  of  a  few  months. 
Sixteen  years  earlier, — and  the  operation  had  continued  in- 
cessantly, like  the  rains  which  came  down  at  the  Flood,  during 
the  whole  interval, — Mr.  Gutzlaff  alone,  in  less  than  twelve 
months,  "  distributed  twenty-three  boxes  full  of  Chinese  books 
among  the  people."*  About  the  same  time,  Mr.  Medhurst,  by 
his  own  account,  was  in  the  habit  of  giving  away,  at  the  cost  of 
the  people  of  England,  five  hundred  volumes  a  day.  Mr.  Tomlin 
also,  an  Anglican  clergyman,  and  companion  of  Gutzlaff,  writes 
thus  to  his  employers: — "We  are  taking  to  Siam  twenty -two 
good-sized  chests,  well  filled  with  the  bread  of  life ;"  and  one  of 
his  ordinary  expressions,  after  discharging  similar  cargoes,  was 
this, — "  Another  sowing  season  is  just  ended."f  Nor  has  this 
abundant  sowing  ever  ceased  during  nearly  half  a  century, 
though  without  producing  in  fifty  consecutive  summers  even  the 
faintest  symptom  of  a  harvest.  As  late  as  1851,  we  still  find  a 
Protestant  missionary  reporting  to  his  employers,  "  I  distribute 
about  one  thousand  copies  a  year."J 

Already,  in  1839,  the  Protestant  missionaries,  we  are  told, 
had  "  printed  thirty  thousand  separate  books  of  Scripture,  and 
upwards  of  half  a  million  of  tracts,  in  the  Chinese  language." 
At  the  same  date  they  had  issued  "  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand tracts  in  the  languages  of  the  Malayan  Archipelago,  com- 
prising twenty  millions  of  printed  pages."  At  Canton  and 

*  China;  its  State  and  Prospects;  by  W.  H.  Medhurst ;  ch.  xi.,  p.  328. 
f  Missionary  Journals  and  Letters,  by  J.  Tomlin,  B.  A.,  cli.  iii.,  p.  55. 
t  The  Chinese  and  General  Missionary  Gleaner,  vol.  i.,  p.  45. 


THE  BIBLE   AND  THE   HEATHEN.  15 

Malacca  alone  they  had  printed,  nearly  thirty  years  ago,  more 
than  four  hundred  andfyfty  thousand  volumes*  And  so  utterly 
wasted  was  this  enormous  and  costly  distribution,  as  we  shall 
see  more  fully  hereafter,  that  a  Protestant  missionary  honestly 
assures  his  employers, — "We  have  had  no  proofs  that  the 
thousands  of  books  thrown  among  this  people  have  excited  one 
mind  to  inquire  concerning  them,  have  induced  one  soul  to  find 
a  teacher  among  the  foreigners  in  China,  or  have  been  the  means 
of  converting  one  individual."  f  This,  as  their  own  agents 
freely  confess,  was  the  result  in  China ;  while  as  respects 
Malacca,  another  Protestant  missionary  frankly  tells  us, — "  No 
Malay  Christian  is  to  be  found  in  the  place."  £ 

Again,  in  Batavia,  which  was  afterwards  abandoned  in  de- 
spair, the  English  missionaries  alone  had  distributed  more  than 
one  hundred  and  ninety  thousand  volumes  upwards  of  thirty 
years  ago.  In  Pulo  Pinang,  where  the  demand  might  be  sup- 
posed to  be  insignificant,  forty-four  thousand  volumes  had  dis- 
appeared by  the  same  date.  In  Singapore  alone,  sixty-six 
thousand  were  dispersed  ;  though,  as  a  missionary  sadly  relates 
in  1839,  "not  a  single  Malay  in  Singapore  had  made  even  a 
nominal  profession  of  Christianity,"  § — he  means  of  Protestant- 
ism, for  he  presently  adds  :  "  The  Catholics  have  brought  over 
a  number  of  Malays, Chinese,  and  others,  and  have  full  audiences 
on  Sundays."  They,  however,  like  the  first  Apostles,  had  not 
distributed  a  single  tract,  and  probably  not  many  Bibles; 
though,  as  Mr.  Medhurst  acknowledges,  "  they  translated  the 
major  part  of  the  New  Testament  into  Chinese." 

In  the  Loo-Choo  islands,  to  which  an  English  Missionary 
Society  sent  Dr.  Bettelheim  as  their  representative,  we  are  in- 
formed by  an  eye-witness,  that  "  if  he  distributed  tracts  at  night, 
the  next  morning  the  police  brought  them  back  to  him,  carefully 
tied  up."  For  seven  years  he  continued  the  operation,  and 
when  at  last  he  retired  in  despair,  had  not  gained  a  solitary 
disciple,  nor  succeeded  in  circulating  a  solitary  tract.  |  What 
his  unfruitful  pastime  cost  the  society  at  home,  we  need  not  stay 
to  calculate. 

But  we  have  as  yet  only  an  imperfect  idea  of  the  extent  to 
which  books  have  been  circulated  in  the  regions  beyond  the 
Ganges.  One  would  have  supposed  that  at  all  events  a  single 
'version  of  the  Scriptures  would  have  satisfied  the  wants  of  the 
Malays,  who  are  not  generally  considered  ardent  or  critical  stu- 

*  Medhurst,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  592. 

4-  See  Dr.  Brown's  Hist.  Prop,  of  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  256. 
I  Malcolm's  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  114. 
|  lUd.  p.  106. 

|  The  Japan  Expedition,  by  J.  W.  Spalding,  U.S.  Steam  Frigate  Mississippi  ; 
ch.  vii.,  p.  113  (1856). 


16  CHAPTER   I. 

dents  of  literature,  whether  sacred  or  profane.  But  this  was  not 
the  opinion  of  the  gentlemen  who  administer  the  funds  of  the 
Bible  Societies.  "  Not  less  than  seven  versions  of  the  Malay 
Scriptures  have  been  printed,"  says  the  Rev.  Howard  Malcolm, 
who  was  specially  deputed  to  investigate  and  report  on  their 
subsequent  fate,  which  he  does  in  these  candid  words  :  u  Many 
thousands  have  been  distributed  ;  but,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  with 
scarcely  any  perceptible  benefit.  I  did  not  hear  of  a  single 
Malay  convert  on  the  whole  peninsula."*  The  seven  versions 
were  apparently  insufficient. 

The  Burmese,  who  have  been  the  occasion  of  great  expense, 
perhaps  without  knowing  it,  to  the  English  and  Americans, 
were  not  less  generously  treated  than  the  Malays,  since  amongst 
them  also,  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  "  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  tracts  had  been  printed  and  circulated,"  and 
how  many  thousands  since,  probably  no  one  knows.  Let  us 
hear  Mi-.  Malcolm  again,  who  thus  announces  to  his  employers 
the  results  of  their  liberality  : — "  We  have  visited  and  distrib- 
uted tracts  in  eighty-two  towns,  cities,  and  villages ;  supplied 
six  hundred  and  fifty-seven  boats  and  vessels,  besides  handing 
them,  in  a  multitude  of  cases,  to  persons  along  shore."  And 
lest  it  should  be  inferred  that  all  this  indicated  co-operation  on 
the  part  of  the  Burmese,  Mr.  Malcolm  immediately  adds  : — "  But 
this  fact  is  far  from  proving  a  general  desire  among  the  people  for 
the  knowledge  of  the  new  religion.  A  tract  is  in  every  respect  a 
curiosity.  They  have  never  seen  such  paper.  The  shape  of  the 
book  is  a  curiosity.  Besides,  it  is  property,  and  no  Burman  will 
refuse  a  gift  without  a  strong  reason."  Sir  John  Bowring 
observes  of  the  neighboring  kingdom  of  Siam,  that  "  one  of 
the  missionaries  acknowledges  that  sheets  of  white  paper  would 
be  yet  more  carefully  sought. "f  Mr.  Malcolm  might  have 
added  too,  that  nearly  all  the  objects  of  his  benevolence  were 

Eerfectly  unable  to  read  the  books  thus  acquired,  even  if  they 
ad  wished  to  do  so.  But  this  literary  incapacity  appears  to 
have  been  considered  wholly  unimportant,  either  in  Burmah  or 
elsewhere.  "  Many  of  them  could  not  read,"  says  another 
official  distributor,  speaking  even  of  the  more  educated  Chinese, 
"  but  they  seemed  willing  to  remove  their  inability,  since  they 
accepted  our  books  and  our  exhortations  to  learn  that  useful 
art  at  the  same  time."J  And  this  he  says,  not  in  jest,  but  with 
serious  gravity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  few  who  made  the 
attempt  to  read  them  usually  returned  them  with  the  remark, 
that  they  were  composed  in  such  a  barbarous  and  incoherent 

*  P.  126. 

|  The  Kingdom  and  People  of  Siam,  vol.  i.,  cli.  xii ,  p.  377. 

%  The  Chinese  as  they  Are,  by  GK  Tradescant  Lay,  Esq.,  oh.  xxxvi.,  p.  338. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  17 

style  as  to  be  perfectly  unintelligible.  But  this,  which  is  the 
second  point  to  be  noticed,  is  too  important  a  fact,  and  too 
characteristic  of  this  singular  missionary  system,  not  to  merit 
further  illustration. 

The  first  Protestant  version  of  the  Bible  in  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage, was  produced  by  the  labors  of  Dr.  Morrison,  who  freely 
used  the  translations  made  long  before  his  time  by  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries, but  without  adhering  to  their  text.  He  had  reason  to 
lament  his  error.  "  1  edited  the  New  Testament,"  he  says, 
"  with  such  alterations  as  in  my  conscience,  and  with  the  degree 
of  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  language  which  I  then  possessed, 
I  thought  necessary  ;*  the  alterations  being  suggested  appa- 
rently by  the  same  motive  which  induced  Professor  Samuel  Kidd 
to  invent  a  new  Chinese  word  even  for  God,  u  for  fear  of  iden- 
tifying the  doctrine  of  the  Bible  with  the  system  of  Popery."f 
Dr.  Morrison's  version  cost  more  than  txventy  thousand  pounds, 
but  has  long  since  been  condemned,  being  found  only  to  excite 
the  contempt  of  the  Chinese  ;  or,  as  the  Bible  Society  cautiously 
admits,  to  be  "  imperfect,  and  not  sufficiently  idiomatic  to  be 
understood.";):  It  is  "exceedingly  verbose,"  says  Choo-Tih-lang, 
a  Chinese  graduate,  "  containing  much  foreign  phraseology,  so 
contrary  to  the  usual  style  of  our  books,  that  the  Chinese  cannot 
thoroughly  understand  the  meaning,  and  frequently  refuse  to 
look  into  it."§  Yet,  as  Mr.  Lay  observes,  "  there  is  a  great  readi- 
ness among  the  Chinese  to  admire  any  thing  of  a  literary  kind  ; 
and  they  had  admitted,  as  Bridgman  notices  in  his  Chinese 
Chrestomathy,  some  of  the  compositions  of  Catholic  missionaries, 
by  the  command  of  the  most  critical  of  their  emperors,  to 
rank  amongst  their  classics.  "  They"  as  Sir  James  Mackintosh 
generously  observes,  "  cultivated  the  most  difficult  of  lan- 
guages with  such  success  as  to  compose  hundreds  of  volumes 
in  it."|| 

It  was  an  unwise  act  of  Dr.  Morrison  to  forsake  such  guides, 
and  trust  to  his  own  inspirations.  Dr.  Marshman,  the  next 
editor  of  a  Chinese  Protestant  Bible,  committed  the  same 
mistake,  and  with  the  same  result.  "  I  am  assured  by  mission- 
aries," says  Mr.  Malcolm,  "  and  by  private  Chinese  gentlemen, 
that  neither  Marshman's  nor  Morrison's  Bible  is  fully  intelligible, 
much  less  attractive.  The  same  is  the  case  with  many  of  the 
tracts,  and  some  of  them  have  been  found  wholly  unworthy  of 
circulation.''^  Abel  Remusat  and  Jules  Klaproth,  both  cele- 

*  Memoirs  of  Robert  Morrison,  D.D.,  by  his  Widow,  vol.  ii.,  p.  3. 
f  Critical  Notices  of  Dr.  Morrison's  Literary  Labors,  p.  34. 
%  Brief  View  of  the  Operations  of  the  B.  F.  B.  8.,  p.  4  (1862). 
§  Medhurst,  cli.  xxii.,  pp.  558-60. 

|  Review  of  the  Causes  of  the  Revolution  ;  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  251  (1846). 
1  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  218. 

3 


18  CHAPTER  I. 

brated  Sinologues,  used  privately  to  ridicule  the  infelicitous 
attempts  of  Morrison  and  his  companions ;  while  Marchini,  who 
could  speak  the  language  fluently,  declares,  that  their  Chinese 
versions  are  "  an  unintelligible  jargon,  which  no  one  could  read 
without  laughing,"  and  that  the  learned  Chinese  into  whose 
hands  they  fell  complained  that  their  "  sublime  idiom  "  should 
be  so  wantonly  caricatured.  The  Abbe  Voisin,  a  Catholic 
missionary  in  China,  who  actually  published  a  French  trans- 
lation, by  way  of  specimen,  of  a  part  of  the  Protestant  Chinese 
version  adopted  by  the  Bible  Society,  apologizes  in  these  words 
for  not  proceeding  further  with  his  task :  "  The  pen  falls  from 
my  hand  in  witnessing  the  ignoble  and  sacrilegious  manner  in 
which  our  sacred  books  are  travestied,  dishonored,  and  per- 
verted. I  defy  the  Chinese  scholar  who  possesses  the  most  exact 
knowledge  of  his  own  language  so  much  as  to  guess  what  the 
translator  intended  to -express;  nor  could  I  myself  have  done 
so,  if  I  had  not  been  familiar  with  the  inspired  text  which  he 
professes  to  translate."* 

And  so  fully  and  unreservedly  has  this  been  admitted,  even 
by  Protestant  missionaries, — though  not  till  the  unwelcome 
facts  had  become  known  in  Europe, — that  as  late  as  1843 
we  find  them  holding  a  solemn  meeting  at  Hong-Kong,  "  of 
missionaries  of  various  Protestant  denominations,"  summoned 
together  for  this  express  object,  to  take  measures  for  concocting 
(me  more  version,  "better  adapted  for  general  circulation  than 
any  hitherto  published. "f  This  new  attempt  was  made,  as  Mr. 
Lay  intimates,  in  spite  of  the  costly  failures  which  had  preceded 
it,  in  the  vain  hope  "  that  the  pages  of  serene  and  heavenly 
wisdom  may  be  cleared  from  those  ugly  prodigies  which  now 
deform  them  so  egregiously."J  But  the  same  fate  still  attended 
all  their  efforts ;  for,  as  a  Protestant  missionary  in  China  has 
quite  recently  informed  us,  "one  or  two  new  versions  were 
attempted,  but  exceedingly  defective,  and  very  unsatisfactory."§ 

Finally,  after  efforts  prolonged  through  half  a  century,  and 
an  expenditure  which  almost  baffles  calculation,  but  which  had 
no  other  result  than  to  make  Christianity  a  jest  among  the 
heathen,  Mr.  Taylor  Meadows,  Chinese  Interpreter  to  H.  M. 
Civil  Service,  thus  describes,  in  1856,  the  real  character  and 
effect  of  those  Protestant  translations,  which  have  cost  such 
enormous  sums,  and  have  been  distributed  in  such  incredible 
numbers  along  the  whole  southern  and  eastern  shores  of  China, 
at  the  expense  of€  the  English  people,  but  without  making  so 

*  Anncdes  de  la  Propagation  de  la  Foi,  tome  ix.,  p.  109. 

\  Chinese  Repository,  vol.  xii.,  p.  551. 

\  Tlw  Chinese,  &c.,  ch.  v.,  p.  52. 

§  Life  in  China,  by  the  Rev.  W.  C.  Milne,  p.  503. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  19 

N, 

much  as  a  solitary  convert :  "  Let  the  English  Protestant  reflect 
on  the  Book  of  the  Mormons,  and  on  Mor monism,  as  it  is  spread- 
ing in  some  places  in  Great  Britain,  and  he  will  obtain  a  by  no 
means  exaggerated  notion  of  the  contemptible  light  in  which 
our  badly  translated  Scriptures,  and  Christianity  in  China,  are 
regarded  by  the  thorough  Confucian  ;  viz.,  as  a  tissue  of  ab- 
surdities and  impious  pretensions,  which  it  would  be  lost  time  to 
examine"* 

Perhaps  it  is  superfluous  to  add,  as  a  further  illustration  of 
the  effects  of  this  new  system  of  propagating  Christianity  by 
the  safe  agency  of  books  instead  of  the  perilous  toils  of  apostles, 
that  the  translations  with  which  Burniali  and  Siam  were  deluged 
were  of  precisely  the  same  character.  Mr.  Tomlin,  himself  an 
active  agent  in  these  proceedings,  reluctantly  confesses  that 
there  were  so  many  "gross  blunders"  in  the  tracts  which  he  and 
others  circulated  in  Siam,  that  the  king,  an  intelligent  reader, 
"  complains  he  can  find  neither  head  nor  tail ;"  and  he  adds, 
that  Chaou-Bun,  an  educated  native  who  assisted  GutzlafF, 
though  he  "  wrote  out  copies  of  the  whole  New  Testament, 
despised  all  our  sacred  books,  and  said  the  tracts  were  abused 
and  torn  by  the  people,  and  ridiculed  by  the  priests  on  account 
of  their  blunders,"!  Dr.  Hobson  also,  an  agent  of  the  Keligious 
Tract  Society  at  Canton,  reports  of  his  own  sphere  of  labor : — 
"  I  am  truly  grieved  that  I  cannot  send  you  pleasing  and  en- 
couraging accounts  of  any  apparent  good  resulting  from  the 
distribution  of  the  tracts — they  are  treated  with  great  dis- 
respect ;"J  and  even  the  Bible  Society  confesses,  in  1862,  uyour 
committee  are  still  unable  to  give  any  satisfactory  account  of 
the  work  of  Bible  distribution  in  this  locality."§ 

We  have  now,  perhaps,  sufficient  information  with  respect  to 
the  circulation  of  Protestant  Bibles  and  tracts  in  China  and  the 
contiguous  countries.  We  have  seen  also  what  is  their  literary 
value,  and  have  been  told,  even  by  Protestant  writers,  that  far 
from  assisting  to  convert  the  heathen  to  Christianity,  they  only 
increase  their  contempt  for  it.  One  inquiry,  and  not  the  least 
curious,  still  remains  to  be  answered. 

It  is  impossible  to  hear  of  the  millions  of  Bibles  and  tracts 
distributed  during  the  last  fifty  years  in  these  countries,  without 
desiring  to  know  what  has  been  their  final  destiny.  As  most 
of  the  heathen  could  not,  and  the  rest  would  not  read  them, 
what,  we  are  tempted  to  ask,  has  become  of  them?  The 
missionaries  were  charged  to  distribute  them,  and  they  did  so  ; 

*  The  Chinese  and  their  Rebellion,  ch.  vi.,  p.  79. 

t  Missionary  Journals,  &c.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  329. 

\  See  The  Gross  and  the  Dragon,  by  J.  Kesson,  ch.  xv.,  p.  234. 

§  Abstract  of  5Sth  Report,  p.  4. 


20  CHAPTER   I. 

with  what  results,  some  of  their  number  have  honorably  con- 
fessed. The  pagans,  chiefly  of  the  lowest  classes,  willingly 
received  them  ;  but  to  what  use  did  they  apply  this  new 
acquisition,  this  prodigious  mass  of  volumes,  of  all  shapes  and 
dimensions,  of  which  the  language  was  supposed  by  their 
authors  to  resemble,  more  or  less  exactly,  the  dialects  of  China, 
Burmah,  and  Siam?  This  is  the  question  which  we  are  about 
to  answer,  by  the  help  of  various  witnesses,  who  describe  what 
they  continually  saw  with  their  own  eyes. 

"The  cause  of  the  eagerness  which  has  sometimes  been 
evinced,"  says  Archdeacon  Grant,  "  to  obtain  the  sacred 
volume,  cannot  be  traced  to  a  thirst  for  the  word  of  life,  but  to 
the  secular  purposes,  the  unhallowed  uses,  to  which  the  holy 
word  of  God,  left  in  their  hands,  has  been  turned,  and  which 
are  absolutely  shocking  to  any  Christian  feeling."*  Let  us  see 
how  far  this  statement  is  correct. 

"  In  China,"  says  Mr.  Lay,  recording  his  own  experience, 
"  it  has  been  customary  for  the  distributor  of  books  to  scatter 
his  wares  in  a  sort  of  broadcast,  and  to  give  wherever  a  hand 
was  held  out  to  receive.  The  natural  result  of  this  was  the 
consignment  of  the  books  thus  bestowed  to  the  shelf,  the  box, 
or  the  cupboard,  where,  when  sought  for  by  the  missionaries, 
they  are  found  in  a  state  of  spruce  and  intact  neatness,  which 
seemed  to  say  :  Here  we  are,  just  as  you  left  us."f  But  this 
was  a  far  better  lot  than  usually  befell  them. 

"They  have  been  seen,"  says  Dr.  Wells  "Williams,  also  a 
Protestant  agent,  "  on  the  counters  of  shops  in  Macao,  cut  in 
two  for  wrapping  up  medicines  and  fruit,  which  the  shopman 
would  not  do  with  the  worst  of  his  own  books."  ;£ 

Sometimes  they  are  applied  to  a  still  more  unexpected 
purpose.  "  At  his  house  at  Shaouhing,  Mr.  Burdon,"  a 
Protestant  missionary,  "  found  an  opium-smoker  stretched  upon 
the  bed,  with  his  head  propped  up  by  a  volume  of  Alford's 
Greek  Testament."§ 

Let  us  hear  another  class  of  witnesses.  "  The  number  of 
books  which  the  Protestants  distribute  is  immense,"  says 
Bishop  Courvezy,  a  prelate  well  known  to  English  travellers  in 
the  Indian  Archipelago,  "  but  the  use  to  which  they  are  applied 
is  very  different  from  that  which  they  were  intended  to  serve. 
At  Singapore,  I  saw  the  walls  of  two  houses  entirely  covered 
over  with  leaves  of  the  Bible ;  this  profanation,  however,  is  not 


*  Bampton  Lectures,  cli.  iii.,  p.  93. 

f  The  Chinese,  &c.,  ch.  v.,  p.  54. 

±  The  Middle  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  xix.,  p.  343. 

§  Report  of  Church  Missionary  Society,  p.  196  (1862). 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  21 

greater  than  when  they  are  employed  to  roll  round  tobacco 
and  bacon."* 

Another  eye-witness  tells  us,  that  in  the  frontier  towns  of 
China,  whole  cases  of  them  were  constantly  "  sold  by  auction, 
and  purchased,  at  the  price  of  old  paper,  chiefly  by  the  shoe- 
makers, grocers,  and  druggists."  M.  Boucho  writes  from  Pulo 
Pinang,  "  I  have  my  self  interrogated  many  intelligent  heathens 
as  to  the  use  which  they  made  of  the  Bibles  distributed  to 
them.  They  have  invariably  replied,  that  they  employ  them 
for  ignoble  purposes."  He  adds,  that  they  were  equally 
unanimous  in  declaring,  "All  these  Bibles  are  translated  in  so 
barbarous  and  unintelligible  a  style,  that,  far  from  presenting 
the  Christian  religion  in  an  attractive  form,  they  are  only  suited 
to  repel  and  disgust  those  amongst  the  heathen  who  felt  some 
inclination  to  embrace  it."f 

The  Abbe  Albrand, — a  well-known  missionary,  at  a  later 
period  a  bishop,  whom  Mr.  Windsor  Earl,  though  a  Protestant, 
warmly  eulogizes  for  his  "  great  success  in  converting  the 
Chinese,"^  and  whose  church  at  Singapore  was  partly  built  by 
the  generous  aid  of  his  Protestant  friends, — after  noticing  an 
American  missionary  who  boasted  that  he  had  "distributed 
twelve  large  chests  full  in  a  few  months,"  continues  as  follows : 
"  He  must  have  a  great  reputation  among  his  countryman,  who 
count  the  number  of  conversions  by  the  number  who  have 
accepted  Bibles ;  but  I,  who  am  on  the  spot,  know  the  uses  to 
which  they  are  destined.  There  is  not  a  day  but  some  object 
passes  through  my  hands  enveloped  in  the  leaves  of  some 
Protestant  publication.  How  many  houses  are  there  in  Singa- 
pore alone  of  which  the  ceilings  and  walls  are  covered  with  the 
leaves  of  some  hundreds  of  Bibles  in  the  form  of  tapestry  !r§ 
He  adds,  what  Mr.  Tomlin  admits,  that  the  Chinese  often  stole 
them  at  night  in  order  to  apply  them  to  domestic  purposes,  and 
that  some  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  appeared  to  consider 
this  larceny  a  very  encouraging  proof  of  their  zeal  for  divine 
things. 

M.  Pecot,  who  was  familiar  with  both  Hindostan  and  China, 
noticing  the  boast  of  the  Bible  societies  that  their  versions  had 
"  penetrated  into  all  parts  of  the  known  world,"  observes,  that 
as  far  as  his  observation  extends,  this  is  perfectly  true  ;  but  he 
adds,  "  the  grocers  in  all  these  countries  can  attest  the  same 
fact,  since  they  distribute  these  translations,  sheet  by  sheet, 
every  hour  of  the  day."  Marchini  also,  speaking  from  actual 

*  Annals  of  the  Prop,  of  the  Faith,  vol.  i.,  p.  107 ;  English  edition, 
f  Anncdes,  tome  iv.,  pp.  192,  214. 

i  The  Eastern  Seas,  by  George  Windsor  Earl,  ch.  xii.,  p.  392. 
§  Annales,  tome  viii.,  p.  133. 


22  CHAPTER    I. 

observation,  reports,  that  "  they  are  sold  by  the  weight  to  shoe- 
makers, to  make  Chinese  slippers ;"  and  this  learned  person 
expresses  his  astonishment,  that  "  the  English,  who  display  so 
much  discernment  and  accuracy  of  judgment  in  other  matters," 
should  allow  themselves  to  be  the  dupes  of  salaried  speculators 
or  visionary  enthusiasts.  Finally,  the  director  of  the  Chinese 
seminary  at  Pulo  Pinang  says :  "  1  have  myself  heard  a  Chinese 
declare  that  he  was  very  grateful  to  the  Bible  Society  for  sup- 
plying him  with  paper  for  a  use  which  I  dare  not  name,  and  he 
assured  me  that  this  was  the  ordinary  fate  of  the  Bibles  which 
which  were  distributed  to  the  Chinese."* 

Without  attempting  to  multiply  needlessly  these  revolting 
facts,  let  us  hasten  to  prove  that  they  occur  as  invariably  in 
other  countries.  "  How  degrading  the  idea,'7  exclaims  a 
Protestant  writer,  with  whose  words  wre  will  conclude,  "  to  put 
into  the  hands  of  every  Chinese  bargeman  or  illiterate  porter  a 
packet  of  tracts,  to  sell  or  give  away  on  his  journey  as  he 
pleases  !"f  Perhaps  the  English  people,  who  pay*for  all  these 
publications,  and  without  whose  aid  this  indiscriminate  pro- 
fanation of  holy  things  could  never  be  accomplished,  may  some 
day  adopt  the  same  opinion  ;  especially  when  they  learn,  from 
an  equally  reluctant  and  impartial  witness,  that  "  hardly  an 
instance  has  occurred  of  a  Chinese  coming  to  a  missionary  to 
have  any  passage  explained,  nor  any  person  converted  who  has 
attributed  his  interest  in  religion  to  the  reading  of  books.";); 
Such,  by  Protestant  testimony,  has  been  the  result,  after  efforts 
prolonged  through  half  a  century,  of  the  distribution  of  countless 
thousands  of  Bibles  and  tracts  in  the  regions  beyond  the 
Ganges.  They  have  cost  incredible  sums,  have  awakened  only 
the  contempt  of  the  few  pagans  who  read  them,  have  been 
polluted  by  the  foulest  and  most  degrading  uses,  and  finally 
consumed  as  waste  paper. 


INDIA. 

II.  Let  us  turn  next  to  India.  The  distribution  of  Bibles  and 
tracts  in  Hindostan  has  been,  if  possible,  still  more  profuse  than 
in  China.  One  is  almost  confounded  by  the  array  of  figures 
which  represent  the  consumption  during  a  long  series  of  years. 
The  Americans  alone — who  had,  ten  years  ago,  twenty-one 
establishments  and  thirty-one  printing  presses  in  Madras  and  its 


*  Annales,  tome  iii.,  pp.  37-46. 

f  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  ix  ,  p.  343. 

|  The  Middle  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  3. 


THE   BIBLE    AND   THE   HEATHEN.  23 

neighborhood,  to  say  nothing  of  other  cities  —  distributed, 
amongst  other  things,  in  one  small  district,  and  as  ft  were  at  a 
single  throw,  thirty  thousand  tracts.*  Nearly  twenty  years  ago 
they  had  already  printed  about  thirty-four  million  pages,  and  up 
to  1858,  more  than  three  hundred  million,  or  one  million  vol- 
umes, in  Madras  alone,f  without  gaining  so  much  as  a  solitary 
convert ;  and  their  operations  are  quite  insignificant  when 
compared  with  those  of  the  English.  Of  the  latter,  General  Sir 
Thomas  Hislop  gave  this  account :  "  These  gentlemen  set  down 
their  converts  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  Bibles  dispersed. 
We  have  ourselves  observed,  at  more  residencies  than  one, 
where  scarce  a  vessel  arrived  without  bringing  a  box  or  package 
of  the  above  books."  He  then  describes  the  embarrassment  of 
a  particular  "  resident,"  who  received  so  many,  with  a  request 
to  disperse  them,  "  that  he  sent  them  to  all  quarters  by  bundles 
of  hundreds  at  a  time."  But  vainly  he  endeavored  to  dispose  of 
the  thousands  which  were  "  heaped  on  him,  ship  after  ship,  till 
at  length  th|y  acquired  such  a  mass  in  his  office,  that  he  was 
compelled  to  remove  them  to  an  out-office,  and  several  thousand 
copies  were  handed  over  to  the  Dutch  authorities,  in  whose 
hands  we  are  sure  they  will  never  bear  much  fruit."  The  gen- 
eral finishes  by  quoting  a  missionary,  who  "  wrote  home  for 
three  hundred  millions  of  Bibles,"  and  suggests,  u  that  in  the 
above  manner  he  could  easily  get  rid  of  even  that  number,  by 
delivering  them  as  ballast,  or  turning  them  out  of  doors  with- 
out an  index  or  a  monitor  to  explain  them.";): 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  since  General  Hislop's  time,  sim- 
ilar operations  have  been  conducted,  by  tenfold  the  number  of 
agents,  and  upon  a  vastly  increased  scale.  Fifteen  years  ago, 
the  Auxiliary  Bible  Society  of  the  single  city  of  Calcutta  could 
boast,  that  they  had  already  issued  "  four  hundred  and  thirty- 
nine  thousand  nine  hundred  and  eight-seven  copies."§  Twenty- 
two  different  missionary  societies  have  run  a  race  with  each 
other,  for  many  years  past,  in  the  same  career,  from  one  end  of 
the  Indian  peninsula  to  the  other. 

We  may  conclude,  however,  without  further  details,  that 
India,  like  China,  has  received  its  millions  of  Bibles  and  tracts, 
and  we  shall  now  see  that  they  had  exactly  the  same  literary 
value,  and  were  employed  in  exactly  the  same  way,  as  in  the 
latter  country. 

*  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society,  vol.  ii. ,  p.  340. 

f  Religion  in  the  United  States  of  America,  by  the  Rev.  Robert  Baird ;  book 
viii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  691.  Proceedings  of  the  South  India  Missionary  Conference, 
p.  49.  (Madras,  1858.) 

$  Summary  of  Mahratta  Campaign,  quoted  in  Monthly  Review,  vol.  Ixiv., 
p.  309. 

§  A  Tear  and  a  Day  in  the  East,  by  Mrs.  Eliot  Montauban,  ch.  vi.,  p.  102. 


24  CHAPTER  I. 

We  will  begin  with  the  impressive  testimony  of  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Adams,  because  he  was  himself  a  Protestant  missionary.  "  Of 
the  one  hundred  and  seventeen  thousand  tracts  printed  by  the 
Bengal  Auxiliary  Missionary  Society,"  says  this  candid  gentle- 
man, "  the  most  part  are  either  mystical,  or  puerile,  or  both  ; 
and  there  is  scarcely  one  fit  to  be  put  into  the  hands  of  a  native 
of  understanding  and  reflection."*  The  natives  entirely  agree 
with  him.  "  You  make  one  convert  annually,  out  of  fifty  thou- 
sand," said  Nobinkissen,  an  educated  Hindoo,  in  answer  to  a 
recent  inquiry  of  Mr.  Lang,  and  that  one,  as  we  shall  see  here- 
after, an  impostor.  "  That  is  the  result  of  preaching  in  the  open 
air,  all  over  the  country,  and  the  distribution  of  thousands  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  tracts  printed  in  the  Hindostanee  and 
Bengalee  languages."f  They  are  so  grossly  absurd,  says  a 
learned  Protestant  authority,  in  allusion  to  the  oriental  transla- 
tions generally,  that  "instead  of  promoting  the  service  of 
Christianity,  it  is  not  irrational  to  impute  some  of  the  backward- 
ness of  the  Hindoos  to  this  cause."J  Let  us  come  tp  particulars. 

The  Telinga  version  deserves  our  first  notice.  A  Protestant 
missionary,  desiring  to  test  its  value,  gave  a  copy  of  this  trans- 
lation to  some  natives  in  the  district  of  Bellary.  They  could 
make  nothing  of  it,  but  their  curiosity  was  so  far  excited  that 
they  consulted  the  most  learned  man  of  their  neighborhood, 
who  took  it  home,  and  after  careful  examination,  informed  his 
clients,  "  that  its  style  was  so  obscure  and  incoherent,  that  it 
was  almost  impossible  to  comprehend  it,  but  that  he  believed 
it  was  a  treatise  on  magic. "§ 

The  Tamul  version  was  equally  successful.  "  The  translation 
is  really  pitiful,"  says  a  Protestant  clergyman,  u  and  deserves 
only  contempt."!  But  there  were  several  versions  in  this  dia- 
lect, for  though  one  may  suffice  for  the  English  and  Americans, 
and  other  civilized  nations,  the  fastidious  pagans  are  supposed, 
it  does  not  appear  why,  to  require  many.  Besides,  there  were 
numerous  Christian  sects  in  Hindostan,  and  each  wished,  in 
emulation  of  every  other,  to  produce  its  own.  "  Rheums  de- 
clares," says  a  recent  writer  on  India,  "  that  he  began  to  edit 
a  new  edition  of  the  Tamul  Bible  before  he  had  been  in  Madras 
one  year  and  a  half.  Other  missionaries  have  confessed  to  a 
similar  folly,  and  have  warned  their  successors  against  it."1]" 
On  the  other  hand,  a  Protestant  clergyman  generously  con- 

*  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxi.,  p.  448. 
Wanderings  in  India,  by  John  Lang,  p.  223  (1859). 
Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxviii.,  p.  303. 
Abbe  Dubois,  quoted  in  the  Annales,  tome  iii..  p.  20. 
llid. 
The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste,  p.  149. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  25 

fesses,  that  some  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  were  the  best 
Tamul  scholars  of  their  age,  surpassing  even  the  most  learned 
natives,  and  that  their  writings  are  used  to  this  day  by  Hindoo 
literates  as  text-books,  and  quoted  with  grateful  admiration.* 

Of  the  Canara  version,  used  in  the  neighborhood  of  Goa,  a 
competent  judge  gives  the  following  and  many  similar  specimens. 
"  In  the  beginningGod  created  the  earth  and  the  air."  u Dark- 
ness was  upon  the  water,  but  the  soul  of  God  wandered  with 
delight  over  the  water."  "  Let  us  make  man  like  to  us,  and 
having  our  form  ;  let  him  command  the  aquatic  insects  of  the 
sea!"  "There  is  in  this  version,"  M.  Dubois  adds,  "hardly  a 
single  verse  which  is  correctly  rendered ;"  and  he  remarks,  that 
"  no  Indian  possessing  the  slightest  instruction  can  preserve  a 
serious  countenance  in  reading  such  a  composition. "f 

As  an  example  of  the  merits  of  the  Mahratta  version,  we  are 
told  that  the  words,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,"  are  translated, 
"  Behold  the  young  of  the  sheep  of  God,"  although  the 
Mahratta  dialect  furnishes  a  word  which  renders  exactly  our 
word  lamb,  while  that  which  they  have  substituted  is  not  even 
a  Mahratta  word.";}: 

In  the  Hindostani  version,  we  are  told  by  another  Protestant 
writer,  the  sentence  "  Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged,"  is  thus 
rendered,  "  Do  no  justice,  that  justice  be  not  done  to  you  ;"§ 
which  must  afford  the  pagan  reader  a  somewhat  confused  idea 
of  Christian  prudence  and  morality. 

As  late  as  1858,  we  find  the  whole  body  of  Protestant 
missionaries  admitting  that "  translators  are  apt  to  be  misled 
by  their  munshis,"  and  giving  this  example,  "  It  has  been  pre- 
sumed that  body  might  be  substituted  for  flesh"  and  so  Christ 
is  said  to  have  come  in  the  body,  the  Word  to  have  become 
lody.»\ 

Dr.  Carey's  Kiinkun  translation  was  briefly  described  by  a 
native  pundit  as  "bad  letter,  and  no  language  at  all."TT  It 
appears  that  this  gentleman  was  more  ambitious  than  even 
most  of  his  colleagues,  and  that  he  "  executed  or  superintended 
translations  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  no  fewer  than  thirty-five 
languages  or  dialects"** — though  he  did  not  even  profess  to  have 
any  knowledge  whatever  of  more  than  six  of  them,  and  so  little 
acquaintance  even  with  these  that,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  lie 

*  The  Land  of  the  Veda,  by  the  Rev.  Peter  Percival,  ch.  vi.,  p.  118. 
\  Annales,  tome  iii.,  p.  31. 
|  Ibid.,  tome  iv.,  p.  179. 

§  baptist  Missionary  Account,  1819,  appendix  to  Report. 
|  Proceedings  of  the  South  India  Missionary  Conference,  p.  224.    (Madras, 
1858.) 

If  Periodical  Accounts  from  the  Serampore  Mission,  vol.  ii.,  p.  167. 
**  Annals  of  the  English  Bible,  by  C.  Anderson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  002. 


26  CHAPTER   I. 

could  not  make  himself  understood  in  one  of  them.  "  They 
have  not  all  been  tested,"  says  the  historian  of  Protestant 
missions,  "  but  those  which  have,  have  been  found  so  imperfect, 
that  his  versions  generally  are  now  given  up  as  of  no  great 
value."*  "  They  have  been  either  simply  useless,"  says  another 
Protestant  authority,  "  or,  from  explaining  the  doctrines  of  our 
faith  by  ridiculous  forms  of  expression,  have  been  absolutely 
pernicious."f  ]STor  can  this  surprise  us  when  we  learn  from  the 
same  writer,  that,  owing  to  the  "  glaring  mistakes"  with  which 
they  abounded,  "the  sense  of  the  original  was  sometimes  com-  " 
pletely  lost,  and  the  meaning  ludicrous  and  absurd.  Yet  it 
would  be  difficult  to  estimate  the  cost  of  these  thirty-five  con- 
demned versions  to  the  people  of  England.^ 

If,  then,  even  Protestant  writers  admit  and  proclaim  these 
facts,  we  may  well  bear  to  hear  Catholic  missionaries,  who  find 
in  these  lamentable  caricatures  of  the  Bible  a  serious  obstacle  to 
their  own  labors,  lamenting  that  their  influence  is  as  deadly 
in  India  as  in  China,  and  that  "  owing  to  their  monstrous  errors 
and  their  barbarous  style,  our  sacred  writings  are  thought  to  be 
the  ivork  of  a  madman.  The  pagans  have  no  sooner  read  two 
or  three  pages  than  they  tear  up  the  book,  or  fling  it  away  with 
contempt."§  Yet  it  is  to  assist  in  fabricating  such  "  per- 
nicious" volumes,  the  only  effect  of  which  is  to  render  the  con- 
version of  the  heathen  impossible,  that  the  English  people 
diligently  frequent  meetings  of  the  Bible  Society,  and  con- 
tribute their  tens  of  thousands  annually.  If  they  had  not  made 
an  imprudent  compact  with  their  own  souls  to  abdicate  reason 
in  matters  of  religion,  and  to  abandon  themselves  to  the 
treacherous  guidance  of  emotion  and  sentiment,  it  is  probable 
that  the  career  of  the  Bible  Society  would  have  been  a  short 
one. 

We  can  hardly  be  surprised  to  hear  that  the  natives  of  India 
make  precisely  the  same  use  as  those  of  China  of  the  so-called 
"  Bibles  "  scattered  amongst  them.  So  rapid,  we  are  told,  is 
their  consumption  in  the  various  branches  of  retail  trade,  that 
of  the  millions  which  have  been  circulated  from  one  end  of 
Hindostan  to  the  other,  it  is  difficult,  except  in  the  capitals,  to 

*  Dr.  Brown's  Hist,  of  the  Prop,  of  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  71. 

f  Theory  of  Caste,  p.  149. 

\  In  spite  of  their  worthlessness,  it  appears  that  the  Baptist  versions,  which  all 
render  the  word  Binrrit-eiv  in  harmony  with  the  doctrine  of  that  sect,  are  gener- 
ally used  by  the  various  communities  ;  but  as  this  is  odious  to  "all  friends  of 
Infant  Baptism,"  a  Protestant  missionary  observes  that  "  the  Calcutta  Bible 
Society  feels  the  want  of  a  new  translation."  "  This  is  saying,  in  fact,"  remarks 
Dr.  Dollinger,  "  we  must  translate  the  Bible  falsely,  in  order  that  the  heathens, 
to  be  converted,  may  not  discover  our  weak  points." — The  Church  and  the 
Churches,  p.  235. 

§  Abbe  (ioust ;  see  Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  500. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  27 

find  so  much  as  the  trace  of  a  single  copy  !  This  singular 
fact  is  revealed  by  an  English  writer,  who,  though  accustomed 
to  co-operate  with  the  missionaries,  gives  this  fatal  testimony  to 
the  nullity  of  their  costly  efforts  :  "  At  the  capitals  I  have  cer- 
tainly seen  a  number  of  translations  of  the  Scriptures  in  the 
various  oriental  languages ;  but  in  the  provinces  and  towns  / 
never,  l)y  application  or  inquiry,  could  hear  of  a  copy  of  the 
sacred  writings  in  the  possession  of  a  native?*  The  mystery 
of  this  wholesale  decay  and  annihilation  of  so  vast  a  number  of 
volumes,  which  the  traveller  might  have  expected  to  find  in 
heaps  blocking  up  every  highway,  is  thus  explained  by  another 
eye-witness.  "  The  greater  part  of  the  heathen  who  receive  a 
copy  make  haste  to  sell  it  for  whatever  money  they  can  get."f 
"  They  sell  the  Bibles,"  says  the  vicar  apostolic  of  Malabar, 
who  had  often  witnessed  the  operation  in  the  two  dioceses  of 
Cochin  and  Oanganore,  "  the  moment  they  receive  them, 
at  any  price  they  can  obtain,  to  merchants  who  use  them  to 
wrap  their  drugs  in." 

Sometimes,  it  appears,  the  more  devout  heathen  actually 
present  Protestant  books  as  an  acceptable  homage  to  their  own 
divinities.  "  I  have  seen  a  Hindoo,"  says  a  well-known  writer, 
"  devoutly  listen  to  a  discourse,  beg  a  tract,  and,  on  his  return 
to  the  village,  leave  it  on  the  threshold  of  the  temple,  and  fall 
down  with  his  forehead  on  the  floor  and  worship  the  image  of 
Ganesa."^:  He  had,  perhaps,  not  understood  the  discourse, 
for  Mr.  Malcolm  relates  that  "  an  experienced  missionary  in 
Bengal  assured  me  that,  on  an  average,  not  one-half  of  the 
sermons  of  missionaries  who  undertake  to  preach  is  under- 
stood.'^ In  spite,  however,  of  their  imperfect  acquaintance 
with  the  Indian  dialects,  these  gentlemen  are  always  prepared 
to  translate  the  Bible  into  any  one  of  them  at  a  moment's 
notice.  u  They  learn,"  says  Mr.  Irving,  "  to  speak  a  vulgar 
dialect  of  the  language,  and  to  pronounce  it  with  a  vulgar 
accent ;  it  cannot  be  surprising  that  such  a  one  makes  but  few 
converts."  "  Bibles  in  every  Asiatic  language,"  says  another 
Protestant  writer,  "  have  certainly  been  distributed  at  an  enor- 
mous expense  throughout  British  India,  but  the  sums  hitherto 
expended  have  been  of  little  avail." [  "The  Bible  is  read," 
says  the  Rev.  W.  Tracy,  "  not  because  it  has  any  attractions  in 
itself,  nor  merely  as  a  matter  of  indifference,  but  because  its 

*   The  Wonders  of  Elora,  by  Captain  J.  B.  Seely,  ch.  xix.,  p.  524 ;  second 
edition. 

\  Annales,  tome  iii.,  p.  32. 

1  Seely,  ch.  xix.,  p.  475. 

§  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  265. 

}  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  iii.,  p.  213. 


28  CHAPTER   I. 

perusal  is  the  only  condition  by  which  admission  to  the  school, 
and  ultimately  to  the  golden  harvest  beyond,  can  be  obtained. 
Its  instructions  are  received  listlessly,  and  speedily  forgotten."* 
Even  the  few  heathens  who  retain  their  copies  make  no  use  of 
them  whatever.  "  Though  many  of  us,"  said  one  of  them  to  a 
Protestant  missionary  in  Asiatic  Russia,  "  have  the  Gospel  in 
our  possession,  we  never  peruse  it ;  and,  besides,  we  have  a 
sufficient  stock  of  religious  writings  of  our  own."f  "  When 
men  take  credit,"  observes  a  Presbyterian  writer,  in  allusion  to 
such  facts,  "  in  permitting  the  Bible  to  have  a  place  on  the 
shelves  of  a  library  with  the  Shaster  and  the  Koran,  it  is  more 
than  evident  to  what  a  pass  their  toleration  has  come.":):  Yet 
this  equivocal  liberality  of  the  Hindoo  or  Mahometan  is  still 
chronicled  in  missionary  reports  as  equivalent  to  a  conversion, 
though,  in  the  case  of  all  the  poorer  recipients,  it  only  signifies 
that  "  the  injudicious  donor  possesses  the  means  of  temporal 
advancement,"§  while  his  gift,  if  retained  at  all,  will  only  be 
found,  as  Mr.  Irving  observes,  in  the  possession  of  that  worst 
class  of  Hindoos,  "  who  may  be  seen,  with  a  Bible  in  one  hand 
and  a  petition  in  the  other,  soliciting  the  alms  of  Europeans," 
and  "whose  lax  morality  shocks  the  feelings  of  even  their 
heathen  countrymen."! 

Yet  these  proceedings  continue  as  actively  at  the  present 
hour,  in  spite  of  their  admitted  results,  as  at  any  former  date. 
In  vain  the  most  unprejudiced  witnesses  protest  against  them. 
"  The  mere  distribution  of  Bibles,"  said  Dr.  Middleton,  the 
first  Protestant  bishop  in  India,  u  will  produce  very  little  effect 
in  promoting  Christianity  among  the  natives."!"  "  Many  of 
them  have  probably  gone  to  the  pawnbrokers,"  said  Sir  Charles 
Oakeley,  governor  of  Madras,  a  man  of  grave  and  religious 
character ;  and  he  added,  but  the  admonition  was  spoken  in 
vain,  "  the  ship-loads  of  Bibles  transmitted  to  India  are  in 
danger  of  being  worm-eaten  before  they  can  be  used  to  any 
salutary  purpose."**  "  The  mission  at  Nagar,"  observes  a 
Presbyterian  writer,  "  has  given  up  distributing  books  and 
tracts,  finding  that  but  little  care  is  taken  of  thein."tf  "  The 
general  impression,"  says  a  collective  report  of  all  the  principal 
missionary  bodies  in  India,  "  produced  by  a  very  lavish  gratui- 


*  Proceedings  of  the  South  India  Missionary  Conference,  p.  174  (1858). 

f  Dr.  Smith's  History  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  vol.  i.,  p.  255. 

\.  Indian  Mission  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  by  James  Mcfarlane,  D.D.,  p.  8. 

§  SindJi,  by  Lieut.  Burton,  ch.  vi.,  p.  150. 

\  Theory  of  Caste,  p.  146. 

1  Life  of  Bishop  Middleton,  by  Rev.  C.  Webb  Le  Bas,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  377 

**  MS.  Life,  by  his  son,  the  very  Rev.  F.  Canon  Oakeley. 

ff  Six  Years  in  India,  by  Mrs.  Colin  Mackenzie,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  184 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  29 

tous  distribution  of  the  Scriptures,  is  bad.  It  tends  to  the 
depreciation  of  the  Word  of  God,  breeding  contempt  for  it."* 
Yet  the  distribution  is  as  lavish  as  ever.  Lastly, — for  we  can- 
not attempt  to  exhaust  the  witnesses, — one  historian  of  British 
India,  lamenting  the  continued  failure  of  Protestant  missions, 
declares  without  hesitation,  that  these  very  distributions  are  one 
of  its  chief  causes,  and  that  their  want  of  success  is  partly  due 
,to  "  their  own  fault,  in  attempting  to  translate  the  whole  of  the 
Scriptures  into  the  most  difficult  languages,  with  which  they 
were  most  imperfectly  acquainted  ;"f  while  another,  who  ridi- 
cules the  barbarous  versions  with  which  India  is  deluged, 
affirms  that  with  such  auxiliaries  "  the  attempt  on  the  part  of 
English  missionaries  to  convert  India  is  a  waste  of  time, 
patience,  and  money.";): 


CEYLON. 

HI.  The  third  sphere  of  missionary  labor  which  we  are  here- 
after to  visit  is  Ceylon.  Here  also  the  same  facts  recur.  Of 
one  of  the  many  rrotestant  sects  in  that  island  Sir  Emerson 
Tennent  relates  that,  "  they  have  printed  a  million  copies  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  thirty  millions  of  other  Christian  publications." 
Again,  speaking  of  the  single  year  1848,  the  same  authority 
says:  "The  prodigious  circulation  of  Christian  tracts  and 
translations  throughout  the  island  amounted  to  upwards  of  five 
million  pages,"§  or  nearly  seventeen  thousand  volumes,  of  three 
hundred  pages  each.  The  Church  of  England  missionaries 
alone,  as  Mr.  Bennett  noticed  in  1843,  had  "  already  distributed 
four  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  tracts, "|  and  they  have  been 
distributing  them  ever  since.  We  shall  see  presently  what  the 
Cingalese  did  with  them.  The  Americans  also,  as  Lord  Tor- 
rington  noticed  in  an  official  report,  "  had  printed  at  the  single 
establishment  at  Batticotta,  four  hundred  and  seventy  thousand 
five  hundred  and  eighty  volumes. r^[  And  their  prodigality  has 
been  emulated  by  all  the  other  sects. 

Let  us  come  at  once  to  the  question  of  results.  "  The  version 
of  the  Scriptures  translated  by  the  Church  of  England  mis- 
sionaries at  Cotta,"  we  learn  from  Sir  Emerson  Tennent,  was 

*  Proceedings  of  the  South  India  Missionary  Conference,  p.  227.  (Madras, 
1858.) 

f  History  of  British  India,  by  Charles  Macfarlane,  ch.  xxx.,  p.  375,  third 
edition. 

\  Ancient  and  Modern  India,  by  W.  Cooke  Taylor,  LL.D.,  and  P.  J.  Macken- 
zie, Esq.,  ch.  27,  p.  520  (1851,  second  edition). 

4  Christianity  in  Ceylon,  ch.  vi.,  p.  285. 

J  Ceylon  and  its  Capabilities,  by  J.  W.  Bennett,  Esq.,  F.L.S.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  61. 

*|f  Ceylon}  Past  and  Present,  by  Sir  George  Barrow,  ch.  vii ,  p.  162. 


30  CHAPTER   I. 

described,  even  by  their  own  nominal  converts,  as  "  ~blas- 
phernous"*  "Two  versions  of  the  sacred  Scriptures  are  in 
existence,"  writes  Lord  Torrington,  who  seems  to  have  over- 
looked a  third  by  the  Baptists,  "  both  provided  by  the  funds  of 
the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  the  one  by  the  Church 
of  England  and  the  other  by  the  Wesleyan  missionaries ;  but 
though  their  respective  presses  are  within  six  miles  of  each 
other,  their  respective  versions  are  so  different,  and  both  of  them 
apparently  so  unsatisfactory,  that  a  youth  who  has  been  trained 
to  the  one  cannot  accommodate  himself  to  the  other,  and  a 
native,  though  very  imperfectly  acquainted  with  our  lan- 
guage, finds  that  he  understands  the  Bible  better  in  English 
than  in  either  !"f 

We  are  fully  prepared  to  hear  that  the  Cingalese  make  exactly 
the  same  use  of  all  this  printed  paper  as  their  brethren  in  China 
or  Hindostan.  What  else  should  they  do  with  the  millions  of 
unintelligible  volumes  forced  upon  them  ?  "  It  is  scarcely 
possible,"  observes  a  learned  Protestant  critic  of  a  certain  trans- 
lation of  the  "  Ceylonese  Sacred  and  Historical  Books,"  "  for  a 
person  not  familiar  with  the  subject  to  conceive  the  extent  of  the 
absurdity  of  these  passages.":):  Why  then  should  the  heathen 
be  blamed  for  acting  as  an  Anglican  missionary  relates  in  the 
following  curious  narrative  ?  "  The  people  came  round  me  in 
great  crowds,  and  held  out  their  hands  for  the  tracts.  We  dis- 
tributed not  less  than  three  thousand.  A  great  many  of  those 
which  they  received  were  either  burned  or  torn  to  pieces.  Some 
were  torn  to  pieces  before  our  eyes  ;  others  were  stuck  upon  the 
branches  of  trees  ;" — these  were  an  appropriate  homage  to  the 
native  gods,  whose  shrines  were  often  adorned  with  pictures  cut 
out  of  Protestant  tracts, — "  and  some  of  the  people,  more  impu- 
dent than  the  rest,  as  soon  as  they  had  received  them,  said  : 
4  These  are  fine  things  for  wadding  for  our  guns,  when  we  go  into 
the  jungles  to  shoot.'  "§ 


THE   ANTIPODES. 

TV.  The  natives  of  Australia  have  not  been  deemed  worthy  of 
any  translations  whatever,  either  of  Bibles  or  tracts.  As  their 
own  language  is  not  of  precise  or  critical  structure,  is  incon- 
veniently limited  in  its  vocabulary,  and  obstinately  defective  in 
its  inflections,  the  missionaries  have  apparently  abstained  from 

*  Christianity  in  Ceylon,  ch.  vi.,  p.  268. 

f  Barrow,  ch.  vi.,  p.  165. 

\  The  History  of  Ceylon,  by  the  Hon.  George  Tumour,  introd.,  p.  20. 

$  Recollections  of  Ceylon,  by  the  Rev.  James  Selkirk,  p.  419  (1844). 


THE    BIBLE   AND   THE    HEATHEN.  31 

attempting  an  Australian  version  of  the  Bible.  If  they  spoke  a 
dialect  which  it  was  possible  to  imitate,  however  remotely, 
they  would  no  doubt  have  been  enriched  long  ago  with  the 
accustomed  millions  of  Bibles  and  tracts  ;  of  which  they  would 
probably  have  made  much  the  same  use  which  the  animals 
who  roam  in  their  forests  might  be  expected  to  make  if  they 
received  a  similar  present. 

The  inhabitants  of  New  Zealand,  possessing  a  more  copious 
language,  have  been  dealt  with  in  a  more  liberal  manner.  In 
1840  the  Bible  Society  presented  ten  thousand  New  Zealand 
Testaments  at  once  to  this  people,  and  how  many  thousand  more 
at  other  times  probably  no  one  now  remembers.*  Dr.  Thomp- 
son mentions  "  sixty  thousand  copies  of  the  New  Testament  " 
2^,  part  of  the  donation  which  they  received.  f  The  intelligent 
Maori  can  now  also  read,  if  so  disposed,  and  in  a  language  pur- 
porting to  resemble  his  own,  "  The  Dairy  man's  Daughter,"  and 
other  publications  of  the  same  order.  He  may  have  them  in 
millions  if  lie  likes,  or,  indeed,  whether  he  likes  it  or  not.  Some- 
times, it  appears,  he  is  forced  to  buy  them,  and  upon  terms 
somewhat  unfavorable  to  his  own  interests.  Mr.  Earp  deposed 
in  1844,  before  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  that 
"  the  missionaries  in  Hew  Zealand  have  carried  on  a  great  trade 
with  books  printed  in  the  native  language."  He  also  informed 
the  House,  which  ordered  the  fact  to  be  printed,  that  "the  mis- 
sionary used  to  exchange  his  tracts  for  pigs  and  potatoes  ;  and 
he  added,  in  familiar  phrase,  "  the  native  looks  upon  the  early 
missionaries,  in  fact,  as  having  done  him."J 

Apparently  the  native  had  good  reason  for  taking  this  gloomy 
view  of  the  transaction.  "The  attempt  to  turn  a  jargon,  like 
the  Maori,  into  a  pure  language,  by  the  missionaries,"  says  a 
Protestant  writer,  "is  a  decided  failure,  and  the  words  they  have 
had  to  coin  are  ludicrous  samples  of  language  making:  very  few 
Maoris  understand  it."§  Other  witnesses  give  actual  examples 
of  the  native  comments  upon  it.||  Mr.  Jerningham  Wakefield 
says:  "In  the  single  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  nearly  one  hun- 
dred words  are  represented  by  sounds  of  which  the  mean- 
ing has  to  be  explained  to  the  native."  He  adds,  that,  like  the 
inhabitants  of  Ceylon,  "they  must  first  be  instructed  in  the 
English  language,"  in  ordei  to  read  the  Bible  in  their 


*  New  Zealand;  its  Advantages,  &c.  ;  by  Charles  Terry,  F.R.S.,  p.  189. 
f  New  Zealand,  vol.  i.,  p.  312. 
t  Parliamentary  Papers,  vol.  xiii.,  p.  155  (1844). 
|  Letters  from  Wanganui,  p.  30  (1845). 

[  See  Savage  Life  in  Australia,  &c.,  by  George  French  Angas,  vol.  ii.,  ch. 
p.  13. 
Tf  Adventure  in  New  Zealand,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  178. 


32  CHAPTER   I. 

Is  it  wonderful,  we  may  ask  in  conclusion,  if  "  many  of  the 
natives,"  as  Mr.  Fox  relates,  "  tore  up  their  Bibles  to  make 
wadding  for  their  guns  ?"*  or  if,  as  another  writer  notices,  with 
suppressed  indignation,  certain  volumes  of  "  Milner's  Church 
History  met  with  a  fate  little  anticipated  by  the  writer,  of 
being  converted  into  New  Zealand  cartridges  ?"f  Why  should 
the  New  Zealander  treat  the  Bible  more  reverently  than  the 
missionaries  themselves,  who  habitually  used  it  as  an  instrument 
of  barter  ?  "  There  is  one  form  of  illiberality  in  the  Church 
missionaries,"  says  a  member  of  the  Legislative  Council  of  that 
colony,  in  1845,  "  which  has,  in  an  especial  manner,  militated 
against  their  influence  ;  I  allude  to  the  practice  of  taking  pay- 
ment for  Testaments,  a  usual  price  being  a  good-sized  pig, 
value  thirty  shillings.  The  natives  complain  of  this  much."J 


OCEANICA. 

Y.  If  we  turn  now  to  the  operations  of  Bible  and  Tract  So- 
cieties in  Oceanica,  a  few  characteristic  facts  will  suffice, 
because  they  will  amply  illustrate  the  prudence  and  good  sense 
which  direct  such  proceedings,  as  well  as  their  gigantic  cost 
and  lamentable  result.  Let  us  begin  with  the  inhabitants  of 
the  pleasant  isle  of  Tongataboo.  Mr.  Williams,  of  whom  we 
shall  hear  a  good  deal  hereafter,  gave  the  following  account  of 
their  peculiar  privileges,  in  a  work  of  wrhich  thirty -five  thousand 
copies  had  been  consumed  by  the  English  public  up  to  1841, 
and  probably  many  more  since.  u  Between  April,  1831,  and 
November,  1832," — that  is,  in  the  space  of  nineteen  months, — 
"  twenty-nine  thousand  one  hundred  copies  of  small  books,  con- 
taining five  million  seven  hundred  and  seventy-two  thousand 
pages,  had  been  struck  off."  And  this,  which  might  have 
appalled  a  more  intellectual  people  than  the  dwellers  in  Tonga- 
taboo,  who  were  profoundly  indifferent  to  the  whole  operation, 
he  considers  "  delightful  evidence  of  the  untiring  diligence  of 
the  missionaries  who  supplied  the  matter."§  What  effect  their 
untiring  diligence  produced  upon  the  natives  we  shall  learn  in 
due  time. 

The  other  islands  of  the  Pacific  have  not  been  neglected. 
Fears  ago,  "  one  hundred  and  sixty  millions  of  pages  had  been 

*  The  Six  Colonies  of  New  Zealand,  p.  83. 

!The  Gospel  in  New  Zealand,  by  Miss  Tucker,  ch.  viii.,  p.  93. 
New  Zealand  and  its  Aborigines,  by  William  Brown,  ch.  ii.,  p.  84. 
Narrative  of  Missionary  Enterprises  in  the  S.  Sea  Islands,  by  Rev.  John 
Williams,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  123. 


THE    BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  33 

printed  in  the  Hawaiian  dialect."*  The  allowance  of  Bibles 
and  tracts  in  this  case  was,  therefore,  nearly  thirty  times  greater 
than  that  accorded  to  Tongataboo — which,  however,  does  not 
appear  to  have  complained  of  the  unequal  distribution. 

The  Sandwich  Islands  were  always  particularly  favored. 
More  than  twenty  years  ago,  they  already  possessed  nearly 
ninety  million  pages  of  missionary  literature.f  How  utterly 
useless  this  costly  donation  has  been  to  them  we  learn  in- 
cidentally, in  1856,  from  an  English  Protestant  traveller,  who 
was  not  only  informed  by  the  native  governor  of  Mawhee  that 
"  every  thing  that  concerned  the  native  race  he  believed  to  be, 
both  physically  and  morally,  retrograde;"  but  was  also  assured 
of  the  unpleasant  fact,  that  "  a  capital  error  had  been  the  chief 
cause  of  the  unsatisfactory  result,"  and  that  the  error  in  ques- 
tion wras  now  so  manifest,  that  "  it  might  have  been  better  that 
their  tongue  had  never  been  reduced  to  rules  and  writing,  for 
very  few  books  could  ever  be  published  in  it."J  In  spite, 
however,  of  this  verdict  of  the  native  authority,  the  "  capital 
error"  has  been  repeated  during  forty  successive  years.  In  the 
single  year  1825,  and  the  work  has  been  going  on  uninter- 
ruptedly ever  since,  the  issue  of  books  and  tracts  amounted  to 
"  seventy-eight  thousand. "§  But  this  soon  came  to  be  con- 
sidered meagre  and  trivial ;  for  when  they  had  circulated  mil- 
lions of  Bibles  and  tracts  in  any  country  without  producing  the 
smallest  effect,  the  only  remedy  which  the  failure  suggested 
to  the  distributors  was  to  circulate  millions  more.  In  the 
Hawaiian  group  this  process  was  continued  with  so  much 
vigor,  that  a  little  later  we  are  told  by  an  American  mis- 
sionary, who  evidently  thinks  it  a  subject  for  congratulation, 
— "  they  print  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  six  hundred  reams  of 
paper  in  a  year,  equivalent  to  twenty-two  thousand  volumes  of 
three  hundred  pages  each."]  This  is  the  work  of  a  single 
year,  and  is  merely  to  satisfy  the  intellectual  wants  of  the 
Sandwich  islanders  for  the  space  of  twelve  months.  It  is  clear 
that  the  whole  population  ought  to  be  employed  in  reading,  day 
and  night,  during  the  entire  period  of  their  existence ;  and 
even  then  they  would  probably  fall  into  arrears,  and  confess 
that  the  printers  had  beat  them.  What  effect  this  copious 
literature  has  really  produced  upon  them  we  shall  see  here- 

*  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society,  vol.  i.,  p.  47. 

f  History  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  Mission,  by  the  Rev.  Sheldon  Dibble, 
ch.  viii.,  p.  150. 

\  Travels  in  the  Sandwich  and  Society  Islands,  by  S.  S.  Hill,  Esq.,  ch.  viii , 
p.  141  (1856). 

§  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  by  C.  S.  Stewart ;  introd., 
p.  21. 

1  Memoirs  of  American  Missionaries,  by  Rev.  Gavin  Struthers,  introd. 

4 


34  CHAPTER   I. 

after;  and  we  shall  learn,  from  Protestant  witnesses  of  all 
classes,  that  they  have  only  become  ten  times  more  vicious 
and  worthless  than  they  were  before  the  missionaries  arrived 
amongst  them. 

The  Rev.  Sheldon  Dibble,  one  of  their  teachers,  has  told  us 
how  the  Bible  is  constructed  for  the  use  of  Sandwich  Islanders. 
The  reader  will  judge  whether  the  heathen  in  China,  India,  and 
elsewhere  have  any  reason  to  complain  that  their  brethren  in 
the  Pacific  have  been  better  treated  than  themselves.  "Manao 
means  thought,"  Mr.  Dibble  informs  us,  "  and  io  means  true 
or  real;  so  the  combination,  manaoio,  is  used  for  faith."  The 
inquisitive  disciple  of  these  islands,  therefore,  if  he  can  read  at 
all,  and  if  he  has  not  used  his  Bible  for  some  purpose  not  con- 
templated by  the  donor,  has  now  the  opportunity  of  learning, 
by  the  aid  of  the  Bible  Society  and  its  intelligent  stipendiaries, 
that  Christian  faith  means  "  real  thought"  But  as  St.  Paul 
speaks  of  "  hope  and  charity."  as  well  as  of  faith,  he  has 
considerably  increased  the  embarrassment  of  his  translators. 
"  Charity"  they  give  up  in  despair,  as  the  Sandwich  Islander 
knows  nothing  about  it,  has  no  word  by  which  to  express  it,  and 
has  even  unlearned,  thanks  to  European  example,  the  native 
courtesy  and  hospitality  which  used  to  do  duty  for  it.  But  as 
"  hope"  is  really  indispensable  to  creatures  looking  forward  to 
eternity,  they  resolved  at  least  to  secure  that  important  virtue. 
They  did  it  after  this  manner :  "  Manao  means  thought,  and 
Lana  means  buoyant ;  so  the  combination,  manaolana,  is  made 
by  us  to  express  hope  ;"*  from  which  felicitous  combination  it 
follows,  that  whenever  a  Sandwich  Islander  conceives  the  timid 
"  hope"  that  he  may  one  day  reach  the  paradise  of  Christians, 
he  is  only  indulging,  though  he  would  perhaps  be  surprised  to 
hear  it,  in  the  pleasures  of  "  buoyant  thought?  Whether  this 
can  be  considered  a  satisfactory  treatment  or  an  adequate  expo- 
sition of  the  Theological  Virtues,  we  need  not  consider  ;  but  we 
may  at  least  be  allowed  to  compassionate  the  unfortunate 
heathen  wjio  is  taught  by  such  masters  that  the  only  difference 
between  Christian  faith  and  hope  is  this,  that  the  one  is  "  real" 
and  the  other  "  buoyant"  thought. 

What  these  barbarians  of  the  Pacific  do  with  their  so-called 
"  Bibles"  when  they  get  them,  we  need  not  stay  to  inquire,  nor 
does  it  much  matter.  We  would  willingly  believe  that  they 
employ  them,  like  other  pagans,  for  domestic  purposes,  or  con- 
sume them  as  fuel,  but  it  appears  they  inake  a  much  less  inno- 
cent use  of  them.  "  Many  circumstances  induced  me  to 


Ubi  supra,  ch.  vii.,  p.  137. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  35 

believe,"  says  a  keen  and  impartial  observer,  "  that  they  con- 
sidered their  religious  books  very  much  in  the  same  light  as 
they  did  their  household  gods."* 


AFRICA. 

VI.  Africa  has  had  its  full  share,  as  might  be  expected,  in 
the  abundant  diffusion  of  religious  publications  which  the  Bible 
Societies  delight  to  distribute.  From  every  part  of  that  vast 
continent — north,  south,  east,  and  west — we  have  exactly  the 
same  reports,  both  as  to  the  literary  merits  of  the  "  Bibles,"  and 
the  uses  to  which  they  are  uniformly  applied.  The  west  sup- 
plies the  following  examples,  among  many  others:— 

There  is  an  African  dialect  called  the  Mpongwe  (Gaboon),  of 
wThich  mention  may  be  found  in  ethnological  researches,  but 
probably  not  elsewhere.  Out  of  tenderness  to  the  population  who 
communicate  their  thoughts  in  this  harmonious  tongue,  and 
perhaps  because  it  was  "  easy  of  acquisition  to  strangers,"f  the 
Protestant  missionaries  had  already  printed,  nearly  twenty  years 
ago,  one  hundred  and  eighty-five  thousand  pages  of  more  or 
less  Christian  instruction,^:  and  they  have  been  printing  ever 
since.  But  as  their  vocation  was  to  print,  perhaps  they  might 
as  well  print  Mpongwe  as  any  thing  else.  It  is  true  that  there 
was  nobody  to  read  their  books,  for  their  own  official  report 
acknowledges,  in  1845,  that  the  "mission  church,"  while  it 
numbered  eleven  official  members,  had  only  attracted  "  eight 
natives."  But  if  the  Africans  did  not  read  their  books,  they 
were  ingenious  enough  to  find  another  use  for  them.  In  the 
same  year,  M.  Bessieux  writes  from  Gaboon  that  he  had  lately 
witnessed,  in  company  with  the  other  European  residents,  "  a 
grand  distribution,  by  one  of  the  ministers,  of  portions  of  the 
Old  Testament  among  the  negroes  ;"  and  that  "  scarcely  had 
the  children  got  possession  of  the  sacred  book,  when  we  saw  the 
leaves  of  the  Bible  converted  into  pretty  kites."§ 

Sometimes,  in  other  parts  of  the  west  coast,  they  do  read  the 
Bible ;  but  only,  says  Mr.  Cruickshank,  a  friend  and  patron  of 
the  missionaries,  to  "  wrest  texts  to  suit  their  views,  and  to 
minister  to  their  inclinations  and  wants." |  Many  examples 

S'ven  by  other  writers  are  too  shocking  for  quotation.     Mr. 
uncan  also  observes,  with  remarkable  candor,  that  "  a  partial 

*  Beechey's  Voyage  to  the  Pacific,  vol.  i ,  ch.  ix.,  p.  306. 
f  Equatorial  Africa-,  by  Paul  B.  Du  Chaillu,  app.,  p.  475 
i  The  Year  Book  of  Missions,  by  Elijah  Hoole,  p.  344. 
§  Annals,  vol.  viii ,  p.  75. 
J  Eighteen  Years  on  the  Gold  Coast,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv..  p.  70. 


36  CHAPTER   I. 

education,  by  merely  reading  the  Scriptures,  is  only  the  rneana 
of  making  them  more  perfect  in  villany."* 

Of  the  too  celebrated  Surinam  Negro-English  version,  of 
which  even  the  Bible  Societies  appear  to  have  been  ashamed, 
we  need  not  give  any  description.  It  is  enough  to  refer  to  it. 
There  are  some  forms  of  irreverence  with  which,  except  under 
the  pressure  of  extreme  necessity,  one  may  reasonably  decline  to 
make  acquaintance.  Even  a  Presbyterian  writer,  not  easily 
offended  by  any  thing  proceeding  from  such  a  source,  complains 
of  it  as  "  most  ludicrous,  and  altogether  inconsistent  with  that 
decorous  and  seemly  garb  in  which  the  word  of  God  should  be 
presented  to  the  public."f 

South  Africa  furnishes  its  due  contingent  of  similar  facts.  Of 
the  Kaffir  .version,  Dr.  Colenso,  a  Protestant  bishop  in  South 
Africa,  relates,  that  even  "  the  word  for  God,  now  commonly  in 
use  among  the  missionaries,  has  no  meaning  whatever  for  the 
Kaffirs.":):  The  Rev.  Mr.  Calderwood  goes  still  further,  and 
declares,  in  1858,  with  a  good  sense  peculiar  to  himself,  "The 
plan  of  gratuitous  distribution  of  the  Scriptures,  generally  speak- 
ing a  bad  one  anywhere,  would  be  doubly  so  in  the  case  of  the 
Kaffirs."§  Colonel  Napier  adds  the  statement,  which  we  might 
have  anticipated,  that "  our  attempts  at  conversion  have  hitherto 
proved  an  utter  failure,  and  the  Kaffirs,  it  is  well  known,  have 
lately  converted,  to  our  cost,  the  Missionary  Bibles  into  ball- 
cartridges  or  wadding."! 

The  North,  though  less  frequented  by  Protestant  missionaries, 
who  have  always  declined  to  measure  themselves  with  Ma- 
hometans, reveals  the  usual  trace  of  their  passage.  In  1859, 
we  are  told  by  a  French  traveller,  "  a  Protestant  clergyman 
inundated  Tetuan  with  New  Testaments  furnished  by  the  inex- 
haustible simplicity  of  the  Bible  Society.  He  decamped  amidst 
the  hisses  of  the  people,  and  his  books  were  cast  into  the 
flames.  "1"  Mr.  Richardson,  the  African  explorer,  adds,  from 
his  own  observation,  the  characteristic  fact,  that  one  reason 
why  the  Mahometans  of  North  Africa  despise  the  Bible, "  is  the 
crabbed  and  miserable  language  into  which  it  is  translated."** 

Finally,  East  Africa  affords  exactly  the  same  evidence  as  the 
other  divisions  of  the  continent.  Let  two  examples  suffice. 

*  Travels  in  W.  Africa,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  303. 

f  The  Edinburgh  Christian  Instructor,  December,  1829. 

i  Ten  Weeks  in  Natal,  by  J.  W.  Colenso,  D.  D.,  p.  56  (1855). 

|  Caffres  and  Caffre  Missions,  ch.  ix.,  p.  129. 

|  Excursions  in  Southern  Africa,  by  Lieut.-colonel  E.  Elers  Napier,  vol.  ii., 
ch.  xxii.,  p.  442. 

Tf  Le  Maroc,  par  M.  Leon  Godard,  p.  40. 

**  Travels  in  the  Great  Desert  of  Sahara,  by  James  Richardson,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v., 
p.  157  (1848). 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  37 

Mrs.  Colonel  Elwood  having  presented  an  Arabic  Testament  to 
one  of  the  tribes,  was  filled  with  sanguine  hopes  because  "  they 
requested  permission  to  take  it  home  to  peruse."  "But  alas! 
whilst  we  were  indulging  in  most  pleasing  speculations  .... 
scarcely  an  hour  elapsed  ere  our  Testament  was  returned  to  us." 
Yet  these  intelligent  barbarians,  who  refused  to  learn  religion 
from  a  book,  and  waited  for  the  living  voice  of  apostolic 
preachers,  "  accepted  with  thankfulness  some  Arabic  spelling- 
books."*  Mr.  Mansfield  Parkyns,  a  capable  and  perfectly  im- 
partial authority,  tells  of  "  missionaries  in  Abyssinia," — they 
have  been  expelled  since  his  visit, — "  who  sit  under  a  tent,  and 
distribute  Bibles  indiscriminately  to  all  who  happen  from 
curiosity  to  come  in.  Among  the  many  persons  I  have  met 
with  who  had  received  them,  one  man  in  particular  had  two 
copies  given  to  him,  which,  as  might  have  been  expected,  he 
sold  the  same  evening  for  a  jar  of  beer,  and  got  drunk  on  the 
strength  of  it.  ...  I  am  convinced  that  our  good  friend  in 
question,  far  from  being  able  to  read,  never  knew  the  meaning 
of  a  single  prayer  of  any  sort  or  description.  Another  man 
whom  I  knew,  a  native  priest,  received  a  copy.  He  could  read 
it.  The  missionary,  perceiving  that  he  appeared  to  set  little 
value  on  the  book,  told  him  to  be  careful  of  it,  as  its  cost,  even 
where  it  was  made,  was  considerable  (I  believe  six  dollars). 
The  priest  very  naively  answered :  '  Ah !  I  am  unworthy  of 
so  costly  a  gift !  Take  back  your  Bible  and  give  me  one  dol- 
lar ;  it  is  enough  for  me.'  "f 

Dr.  Lewis  Krapf  confesses,  in  1860,  that  he  carried  with  him 
to  Abyssinia,  "  thirty  chests  full"  of  Bibles,  and  actually  dis- 
tributed "  nearly  eight  thousand  ;"  and  though  the  distribution, 
as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  was  singularly  unfruitful,  he  gravely 
recommends,  after  retiring  from  the  country,  that  "more  Bibles 
should  be  distributed  among  them.";):  Mr.  Parkyns,  however, 
— speaking  especially  of  the  kingdom  of  Tigre,  "  the  country 
with  which  I  am  acquainted,  and  where  so  many  Bibles  were 
distributed," — says,  "  O/  what  use  can  Bibles  possibly  be  in 
Abyssinia  ?  First,  who  can  read  ?"  And  then  comes  the  usual 
fact :  "The  use  to  which  the  many  Bibles  given  away  in  this 
country  are  commonly  applied  is  the  wrapping  up  of  snuff,  and 
such. like  undignified  purposes."§  If  it  is  the  duty  of  England 
to  furnish  Abyssinia  with  paper  for  such  objects,  it  might  at 
least  be  done  at  a  cheaper  rate. 

*  Narrative  of  a  Journey*to  India,  &c.,  by  Mrs.  Colonel  Elwood,  vol.  i.,  Let- 
ter 34,  p.  329. 

f  Life  in  Abyssinia,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xii.,  pp.  153-5  (1853). 

i  Travels,  &c.,  in  Eastern  Africa,  by  Rev.  Dr.  J.  Lewis  Krapf,  ch.  vii.,  pp. 
85-106  ;  ch.  viii.,  pp.  111-437  (I860;. 

§  P.  155. 


38  CHAPTER  I. 


EUROPE,    THE   LEVANT,    SYKIA,  ETC. 

YII.  Throughout  the  Levant,  Syria,  and  Armenia,  millions  of 
Bibles  and  tracts  have  been  dispersed,  of  much  the  same  literary 
value,  with  partial  exceptions,  and  with  no  great  variety  of 
result.  Mr.  Jowett,  in  a  report  to  the  Malta  Bible  Society, 
says :  "  The  bishop  of  Scio,  a  truly  learned  man,  regrets,  in 
behalf  of  his  own  nation,  the  vulgarity  of  that  version  which 
has  been  printed  for  the  Greeks."*  Many  new  attempts  have 
been  made  since  then,  and  some  have  been  more  successful.  If 
there  is  a  work  which  requires,  not  only  the  most  delicate 
precision  of  knowledge  and  refinement  of  scholarship,  but  a 
combination  of  all  the  highest  intellectual  gifts,  it  is  certainly 
the  translation  of  the  Bible.  The  framers  of  the  English 
version,  so  conspicuous,  in  spite  of  its  defects,  for  beauty  and 
melody  of  diction,  were  evidently  of  this  opinion.  Yet  many  of 
the  modern  missionaries  who  have  ventured  upon  the  arduous 
task,  which  implies  the  perfect  mastery  of  at  least  two  languages, 
far  from  knowing  that  into  which  they  proposed  to  render  it, 
appear,  from  their  official  compositions,  to  have  had  only  a 
slender  acquaintance  with  their  own. 

Mr.  Strickland,  the  historian  of  the  American  Bible  Society, 
relates  of  one  of  the  Greek  versions,  as  if  he  really  believed  the 
anecdote,  that  "the  Ionian  Bible  Society  had  sent  thousands  of 
copies  to  the  suffering  Greeks,  many  of  whom  were  seen  reading 
the  sacred  pages  while  encamped  in  expectation  of  the  enemy." 
It  is  due  to  him  to  add,  that  he  was  not  the  original  inventor  of 
this  fiction,  which  had  been  actually  published  by  the  English 
Bible  Society  in  one  of  their  reports  ;  but  it  should  have  been 
told  of  any  but  Greeks,  and  especially  Greek  soldiers,  who 
would  be  surprised  to  find  themselves  the  heroes  of  such  a  tale. 
Mr.  Strickland  might  have  known,  and  probably  did  know, 
that  even  the  Greek  clergy,  as  a  countryman  of  his  own 
indignantly  relates,  not  only  make  no  use  whatever  of  the 
Protestant  Bibles  forced  upon  them,t  but  often  diligently 
collect,  in  order  to  commit  them  to  the  flames.  He  might  have 
known,  what  American  missionaries  in  Greece  have  found  to 
their  cost,  that  the  bible-distributors  in  that  land  have  been 
chastised  by  the  civil  tribunals  with  fine,  imprisonment,  and 
exile  ;  while  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  as  the  mortified  agent 
of  an  English  Society  resentfully  re'cords,  "have  always 
strenuously  opposed  the  distribution  of  the  Bible  in  modern 

*  Quoted  in  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  vi.,  p.  503. 

f  Dr.  Hobinson,  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine,  vol.  i.,  s.  3,  p.  146. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  39 

Greek."*  He  might  have  known,  that  the  Bibles  presented  to 
the  monastery  at  Mount  Sinai  "  remain,"  as  a  Protestant 
traveller  observes,  and  will  always  remain,  unread  on  the 
dusty  shelves."f  It  was  not  impossible  for  him  to  have 
known  also,  that  in  1854,  the  schismatical  Greek  patriarch, 
worried  out  of  his  habitual  apathy  by  aggressive  "missionaries," 
published  an  encyclical  letter,  in  which  he  not  only  warned  all 
his  nation  against  the  emissaries  of  the  Bible  Society,  but 
described  the  latter,  ex  cathedra,  as  "  satanical  heresiarchs  from 
the  caverns  of  hell."J  Finally,  if  it  was  too  much  to  expect 
that  an  historian  should  be  acquainted  with  facts  with  which 
everybody  else  was  familiar,  Mr.  Strickland  might  at  least 
have  been  warned  by  the  candid  confession  of  an  English 
Protestant,  long  resident  among  the  Greeks,  who  honestly 
exposes  this  particular  fiction  as  "  an  astounding  misrepre- 
sentation of  the  Bible  Society,"  and  then  adds  the  emphatic 
declaration, — "  I  have  been  a  good  deal  among  the  Greeks,  and 
often  at  Smyrna,  but  I  have  never  seen  one  of  them  reading  the 
Bible,  nor  do  I  believe  has  any  Englishman  there."§ 

It  is  quite  true,  however,  as  Mr.  Strickland  reports  with 
undue  elation,  that  vast  numbers  of  Bibles  have  been  distrib- 
uted among  them,  and  that  Greeks  have  even  sometimes  been 
the  agents  in  doing  it.  But  this  singular  fact  is  fully  explained, 
when  we  learn  from  Mr.  Jowett  that  "  the  Bible  Society  grants 
a  commission  of  ten  per  cent,  to  the  person  employed  to  sell 
them."  This  condition  being  duly  announced  to  one  Procopius, 
"chief  agent  of  the  (schismatical)  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,"  that 
intelligent  Greek  eagerly  replied,  "  Send  me  the  books,  and  I 
shall  immediately  begin,  and  when  I  have  furnished  the 
patriarchate  with  the  Scriptures,  I  will  circulate  them  else- 
where."] No  doubt  he  would,  and  all  over  the  world  if 
necessary,  with  so  attractive  a  recompense  in  view. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  well  to  notice,  in  passing,  the  fate  of  the 
Bible  Society  in  Russia,  which  gives  the  law  to  Greece,  and 
whose  example  is  commonly  followed  by  all  the  Photian  sects. 
Founded  at  St.  Petersburg,  in  1813,  by  the  permission  of 
Alexander,  then  under  the  influence  of  Madame  de  Krudener, 
it  was  peremptorily  suppressed  as  early  as  1826  ;  and  Schnitzler 
relates,  that  the  immediate  cause  of  this  catastrophe  was  the 


*  Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  594  (1854). 

f  The  Golden  Horn,  &c.,  by  Charles  James  Monk,  M.  A.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv., 
p.  104  (1851). 

±  Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  816. 

|  Admiral  Slade,  Records  of  Travel,  vol.  ii.,  p.  476. 

\  Christian  Researches  in  the  Mediterranean,  by  Rev.  W.  Jowett,  app.,  p.  438, 
third  edition. 


40  CHAPTER   I. 

unexpected  discovery,   that    certain  individuals   "  had  been 
making  a  criminal  use  of  the  Bible."* 

It  is  true  that  at  a  later  period  the  prohibition  was  relaxed, 
but  after  a  peculiarly  Muscovite  fashion.  "  Missionaries  may 
indeed  introduce  Bibles  in  any  given  quantity,"  we  are  told, 
"  but  let  them  only  venture  to  attempt  to  convert,  not  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Russian  Church,  but  a  heathen  or  idolater,  to  any 
form  of  worship  but  its  own,  and  Siberia  stares  them  and  their 
proselyte  in  the  face."f 

Perhaps,  also,  the  indifference  of  the  authorities  to  the  dis- 
tribution of  Protestant  Bibles  is  due  to  the  fact,  that  they  are 
found  to  produce  no  more  effect  in  Russia  than  elsewhere. 
"  A  total  of  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  copies"  of  Bibles 
and  tracts  was  scattered  along  both  banks  of  the  Volga  by  Dr. 
Henderson  and  his  companions,  and  produced  as  much  spiritual 
fruit  as  the  same  number  of  blank  leaves  would  have  done. 
The  Nogai  Tartars  were  enriched  with  a  costly  donation  of 
"  copies  of  the  Tartar  New  Testament,"  but  "  one  of  us  found," 
says  Henderson,  "  that  few  of  them  had  been  circulated,  and 
that  the  Tartars  manifested  little  disposition  to  receive  them."J 

It  would  occupy  too  much  space  to  trace  minutely  the  results 
of  Bible  distribution  in  other  European  countries,  nor  do  they 
strictly  belong  to  our  subject.  Everywhere  their  history  is  the 
same.  Their  manufacture  furnishes  a  revenue  to  agents  in 
England,  and  their  distribution  to  agents  abroad  ;  but  this  is  the 
only  end  which  they  serve.  In  France  a  single  agent  "  effected 
in  the  course  of  one  year  the  distribution  of  two  hundred 
thousand  Bibles  and  Testaments. "§  Yet  Protestantism  has 
neither  enlarged  its  borders,  nor  changed  its  character,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  operation.  In  1841,  "  it  was  hardly  possible," 
we  are  told,  "to  find  twenty  pasteurs  who  confessed  the 
doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Atonement." |  In  1847, 
Dr.  Clark,  an  Episcopalian  minister,  once  more  described 
French  Protestantism  as  "  a  cold  formalism,  and  a  sort  of 
rational  Christianity,  with  which  David  Hume  would  have 
found  no  fault. "1"  He  only  omits  to  add,  that  it  was  the  unre- 
stricted use  and  the  individual  interpretation  of  the  Protestant 
Bible  which  occasioned  this  dismal  apostasy. 

In  Portugal^  the  only  appreciable  result  of  the  operation  of 
the  Bible  Society  is  this,  that  the  residents  in  Lisbon  and  its 

*  Histoire  Intime  de  la  Russie,  notes,  p.  472. 
f  Revelations  of  Russia,  pref.,  p.  23. 

\  Biblical  Researches  in  Russia,  by  E.  Henderson ;  ch.  xvi.,  p.  381 ;  ch.  xviii., 
p.  427. 

§  Strickland,  ch.  xxx.,  p.  269. 
\  Report  of  Foreign  Aid  Society,  December,  1841. 
TT  Glimpses  of  the  Old  World,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xxvi.,  p.  443. 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  HEATHEN.  41 

suburbs  find  that  all  the  articles  which  they  obtain  from  the 
public  markets,  and  especially  fruit,  butter,  and  fish,  come  to 
them  enveloped  in  sheets  of  the  Protestant  Bible.  The  better 
class  of  Portuguese  see  in  this  fact  only  a  proof  of  the  irrev- 
erence which  leads  to  such  profanation. 

In  Spain,  as  a  Protestant  writer  informs  ug,  Mr.  Borrow's  ex- 
pedition "  was  not  only  a  most  complete  and  entire  failure,  but 
of  such  a  nature  as  entirely  to  defeat  any  future  attempt  of  the 
same  kind."  "  Hardly  any  Spaniard  to  whom  I  mentioned  the 
subject,"  says  this  gentleman,  "had  ever  heard  either  of  the 
expedition  or  the  individual !"  On  the  other  hand,  the  reprint 
of  the  Valencia  Bible,  which  was  taking  place  at  the  time  of  his 
visit,  "  supposes  a  large  demand,"  he  observes,  "  as  it  is  rather 
an  expensive  work."*  But  if  Mr.  Borrow's  Bibles  failed  to 
attract  attention  in  Spain,  where  every  peasant's  child  is 
familar  with  the  sacred  mysteries  of  revelation,  their  distribu- 
tion produced  a  certain  effect  in  London.  The  fruit-dealers  of 
that  metropolis,  as  an  English  reviewer  noticed  at  the  time  of 
Mr.  Borrow's  costly  excursion,  were  surprised  to  find  that  they 
received  during  several  weeks,  together  with  their  customary 
Spanish  imports,  a  continual  supply  of  mutilated  Gospels,  and 
fragments  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul.  It  was  in  this  way  that 
Mr.  Borrow's  Bibles  returned  to  England. 

Mr.  Urquhart,  who  evidently  adopted  the  Spanish  rather 
than  the  English  estimate  of  Mr.  Borrow,  was  able  to  discover 
that  one  of  his  most  effective  tales,  conspicuous  for  minute 
precision  as  to  names  and  places,  was  deplorably  inaccurate 
in  every  particular.  "  The  Alcalde,  to  whom  I  told  the  story, 
contented  himself  with  repeating  the  writer's  name,  and  laugh- 
ing long  and  quietly. "f  Mr.  Borrow,  who  became  a  hero  in 
England,  appears  to  have  been  only  a  jest  in  Spain. 

It  should  be  added,  that  even  the  directors  of  the  Bible 
Society  have  learned  a  lesson  in  this  case  ;  and  while  they  assure 
their  subscribers,  "  we  can  but  heave  the  sigh  of  sorrow,  and 
drop  the  tear  of  pity,"  they  confess  "  that  all  action,  as  regards 
Bible  distribution,  is  for  the  present  suspended  in  this 
country.";): 

Every  land  furnishes  examples  of  the  same  kind.  English 
Bibles  are  found  everywhere,  and  everywhere  equally  profit- 
able. In  Austria  this  is  their  fate :  "  two  years  ago,"  says 
Mr.  Kohl,  "  several  wagon-loads  of  Bibles  fell  into  the  hands 

*  Spain  and  the  Spaniards  in  1843,  by  Captain  Widdrington,  R.  N  ,  vol.  ii., 
p  304. 

f  The  Pillars  of  Hercules,  by  David  Urquhart,  Esq.,  M.  P.  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  72 
(1850). 

\  Abstract  of  the  Fifty-eighth  Report  of  the  B.  F.  B.  8.,  p.  2  (1862). 


42  CHAPTER   I. 

of  the  Bohemian  custom-house  officers,  by  whom  they  are  kept 
to  the  present  day  under  lock  and  key."* 

Italy,  and  especially  Piedmont,  have  lately  excited  the  hopes 
of  English  Protestants.  The  national  sympathy  has  been  mani- 
fested by  the  usual  present  of  Bibles,  and  with  the  usual  result. 
"  I  pass  every  day,"  says  the  Times'  Own  Correspondent,  "  a 
little  bookstall  under  the  Turin  porticoes  in  Yia  di  Po ;  its 
shelves  are  groaning  under  the  weight  of  Bibles,  but  the  old 
woman  who  offers  them  for  sale  has  a  perfect  sinecure  of  it."f 

Yet  some  of  the  Piedmontese,  we  are  assured  by  a  Protestant 
clergyman,  "  do  read  the  Bibles  offered  to  them  ;  but  I  am 
obliged  to  admit  that  it  is"  only  to  find  arguments  against 
religion,  and  "  without  the  slightest  belief  in  them  beyond  their 
mere  use  for  the  occasion.";): 

In  Switzerland,  the  cradle  of  Calvinism,  and  in  its  most 
Protestant  canton,  a  report  of  the  so-called  Berne  Synod  lately 
announced,  that  "of  every  ten  householders  there  is  scarcely  to 
be  met  one  who  now  believes  in  God  and  Christ,  or  makes  any 
use  of  the  Scriptures,"§ — a  result  produced  by  the  use  which 
they  made  of  them  in  former  times. 

In  Germany,  where  millions  of  Bibles  have  been  distributed, 
and  where  the  right  to  use  them  without  restriction  was  first 
established,  "  there  is  no  book,"  says  Tholuck,  "  less  studied 
than  the  Bible ;  amongst  a  hundred  Christian  households  there 
is  scarcely  one  to  be  found  in  which  the  Holy  Scriptures  are 
still  read."| 

In  England,  where  every  peasant  can  obtain  a  Bible  for  a  few 
pence,  the  results  have  hardly  been  more  beneficial  to  religion. 
In  the  educated  classes  we  now  witness  the  rapid  growth  of 
indifference  or  unbelief ;  in  the  clergy  such  increasing  discord  of 
opinion,  that  hardly  two  can  be  found  in  the  same  town  holding 
identical  views;  and  among  the  masses,  as  the  late  census 
revealed,  utter  ignorance  of  the  Christian  faith  among  upwards 
of  five  millions  of  the  population,  so  that  in  many  regions  of 
Great  Britain  Christianity  may  be  said  to  have  given  place  to 
heathenism. 

But  it  is  time  to  resume  our  observations  in  more  distant  lands. 
Persia  has  not  been  neglected  by  the  Bible  societies  of  England 
and  America.  The  Shah  was  induced,  we  are  told,  to  sanction 
by  his  "firman"  the  introduction  of  Protestant  Bibles,  with  the 


*  Austria,  by  J.  G.  Kohl ;  p.  67,  English  edition  (1843). 
f  The  Times,  April  29,  1862. 

t  The  Italian  Valleys  of  the  Pennine  Alps,  by  the  Rev.  S.  W.  King,  M.A.. 
F.K.G.S.,  ch.  x.,  p.  227  (1858). 
8  Bellinger,  The  Church  and  the  Churches,  p.  217. 
j  Ibid.,  p.  325. 


THE   BIBLE   AKD   THE   HEATHEN.  43 

politic  view  of  gratifying  "  the  worthy  and  respectable  Sir  Gore 
Ouseley,  envoy  extraordinary  from  his  Majesty  the  King  of 
Great  Britain."  But  our  informant  adds  immediately,  that  "he 
and  his  courtiers  would  rather  spit  upon  them."  Melancholy 
facts  attested  this  perverse  disposition.  A  certain  Protestant 
missionary,  who,  like  the  rest  of  his  coreligionists,  was  uncon- 
scious of  any  other  mode  of  converting  unbelievers,  "with  much 
toil  and  bribery  smuggled  some  translations  amongst  them." 
Convinced  at  last  that  he  was  laboring  in  vain,  this  gentleman 
returned  to  England;  but  "  on  his  quitting  "Persia,  they  con- 
temptuously tore  them  up  in  his  presence,  and  trampled  them 
in  the  dirt." 

It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  the  English  writer  who 
records  this  characteristic  incident,  and  who,  in  spite  of  national 
predilections,  was  constrained  to  compare  "  the  religious  feeling" 
of  the  Persians  with  the  apathy  of  "  the  cold,  calculating  Prot- 
estant," was  only  tempted  to  an  amiable  pleasantry  by  his 
experience  of  the  results  of  Bible  distribution.  "  It  is  aston- 
ishing," he  remarks,  "to  see  the  zeal  which  animates  these 
people,  literally  '  pressing  forward'  to  their  temples,  and  with- 
out any  adventitious  aid  of  Koran  societies"* 

Armenia  and  Syria,  of  which  we  are  hereafter  to  speak  more 
fully,  deserve  at  least  a  brief  allusion.  In  the  former  country 
—where  American  benevolence  expends  fifty  thousand  dollars 
yearly,  with  results  which  will  be  found  worthy  of  our  attention 
— the  Protestant  missionaries  distributed,  in  the  single  year  1845, 
more  than  two  million  pages  of  print ;  and  the  total  issue  by  the 
Americans  alone,  in  that  single  province,  or  rather  in  a  small  part 
of  it,  had  reached  at  the  same  date  seventy-five  million  pages,  f 
Yet,  as  the  learned  Eugene  Bore  observes,  "  the  people  cannot 
understand  their  faulty  and  inaccurate  translations,  even  when 
they  know  how  to  read  ;"J  and  have  so  little  need,  as  Dr.  Bo- 
denstedt  candidly  intimates,  of  the  miserable  Protestant  versions 
flung  among  them,  that  they  "  had  an  excellent  translation  of 
the  Bible"  many  centuries  before  Protestantism  began  to  exist.§ 

In  Syria  also,  in  one  twelvemonth,  they  printed  one  million 
two  hundred  and  eighty-two  thousand  pages.  In  the  single  city 
of  Smyrna  they  had  printed,  fifteen  years  ago,  "more  than  thirty- 
two  million  pages,"] — for  what  class  of  readers  it  would  be  im- 


*  Three  Years  in  Persia,  &c.,  by  George  Fowler,  Esq.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  x.,  p.  127  : 
ch.  xv.,  pp.  193-196  (1841). 

f  Hoole,  p.  401. 

\  Armenie,  par  M.  Eugene  Bore,  p.  138. 

§  Life  in  the  Caucasus  and  the  East,  by  Friedricli  Bodenstedt,  vol.  i.,  part  2, 
p.  59  (ed.  Waddington). 

|  Observations  in  the  East,  by  J.  P.  Durbin,  D.D.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxxv.,  p.  294. 


44  CHAPTER   I. 

possible  to  guess.  But  the  constant  repetition  of  these  figures, 
always  amounting  to  millions,  becomes  monotonous. 

Two  or  three  characteristic  examples,  however,  may  be  added, 
for  the  sake  of  illustrating  both  the  wisdom  of  these  reckless 
distributions,  which  constitute  the  leading  feature  of  Protestant 
missions  to  the  heathen,  and  the  ingenuousness  of  the  agents 
who  superintend  them.  The  Rev.  Jacob  Samuel,  who  was  sent 
on  an  expedition  to  Bagdad  which  he  calls  "  a  Missionary  Tour," 
relates,  that  at  Bassora  the  Mahometans  displayed  such  eager- 
ness to  obtain  his  Bibles,  that  "  his  house  was  surrounded  by 
thousands  of  Mussulmans,  who  all  cried  for  books"*  In  a  single 
day  he  flung  among  them,  he  says,  "  about  two  thousand  single 
Gospels  of  St.  John,"  besides  a  due  proportion  of  tracts  and 
other  publications.  And  this  pleasing  incident  was  narrated  by 
impassioned  orators  at  many  a  bible-meeting  both  in  England 
and  America,  amidst  the  plaudits  of  confiding  audiences.  It  was 
a  great  encouragement  to  hear  that  even  "  the  Mussulmans,"  so 
long  obdurate,  had  at  last  begun  to  "  cry  for  books."  It  is  true 
that  the  talc  was  improbable,  but  this  only  gave  it  additional 
interest.  The  Mahometans  are  the  least  likely  people  in  the 
world  to  act  the  part  ascribed  to  them  by  Mr.  Samuel.  "  The 
Bible,"  says  one  who  lived  among  them,  "  hardly  excites 
curiosity  enough  in  them  to  take  it  up  and  read  a  single  verse. 
I  have  often  offered  it  to  them  to  read,  but  .they  have  refused  to 
open  the  book."f  And  an  English  clergyman  notices  that  when, 
some  years  ago,  five  or  six  hundred  Bibles  were  distributed  at 
once  in  Constantinople,  the  Sultan  issued  a  finnan — no  doubt 
at  the  suggestion  of  others — commanding  all  the  followers  of  the 
Prophet  "  to  cast  them  into  the  flames,  and  reduce  them  to 
ashes.":):  Mr.  Samuel,  however,  says  he  overcame  all  these 
difficulties,  and  that  Bassora  was  the  scene  of  his  triumphs. 

Unfortunately,  another  traveller  followed  closely  in  the  track 
of  the  unsuspecting  Mr.  Samuel,  and  arrived  at  Bassora  in  time 
to  attest  two  curious  facts ;  the  first,  that  Mr.  Samuel  had 
narrowly  escaped  being  torn  to  pieces  by  his  admiring  Mahom- 
etan disciples,  who  "  all  cried  for  books" — a  fate  which  he  only 
escaped  by  a  timely  flight ;  and  the  second,  that  the  people  of 
Bassora,  more  reverential  than  Protestant  missionaries,  anxious, 
as  they  said  themselves,  "  that  a  book  which  Mahometans  as  well 
as  Christians  consider  sacred  might  not  be  trodden  under  foot, 
resolved,  that  the  volumes  should  all  be  thrown  into  the  river, 


*  Missionary  Tour  through  Arabia  to  Bagdad,  by  Rev.  Jacob  Samuel, 
ch.  xxiv.,  p.  236. 

f  Richardson,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  157. 

\  Constantinople,  &c.,  by  Rev.  R.  Walsh,  LL.D.,  vol.  ii.,  app.,  p.  501. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  4:5 

and  this  order  was  accordingly  executed."*  Such  was  the  real 
version  of  Mr.  Samuel's  adventures,  and  such  the  fate  of  his 
Bibles,  which  are  now  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the  Euphrates. 

Another  Protestant  missionary,  who  visited  Tiflis,  Kars,  and 
Erzeroum,and  was  almost  as  skilful  in  the  composition  of  official 
reports  as  Mr.  Samuel,  "  sent  his  books  for  sale  through  the 
bazaars  and  streets."  When  nobody  would  buy,  he  offered  them 
gratis.  The  population  being  still  apathetic,  he  dropped  them, 
as  a  last  resort,  in  the  markets.  "  He  heard  of  eight  of  his 
books  being  torn  to  pieces  ;"  and  finally,  the  Kadi  and  Mufti 
declared,  that  so  strong  was  the  popular  feeling  against  him, 
if  he  should  be  killed  they  could  not  be  responsible.''!  And 
then  he  decamped, — fully  prepared,  however,  to  give  the  usual 
account  of  his  triumphant  labors,  and  of  the  obligations  of 
Mahometans  to  the  Bible  Society. 

A  still  more  curious  instance  is  afforded  by  a  well-known 
Protestant  missionary,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Joseph  Wolff,  conspicuous 
amongst  his  order  for  energy  and  vivacity,  but  also  for  some- 
what romantic  narratives  of  his  own  victories,  in  many  lands 
and  over  many  people.  In  these  days  of  universal  travel  and 
easy  locomotion,  such  tales  are,  to  say  the  least,  imprudent ; 
because,  sooner  or  later,  they  are  sure  to  encounter  the  critical 
analysis  of  some  impartial  witness,  who  deals  with  these  fables 
as  Fontanier  did  with  the  inventions  of  the  inaccurate  Mr. 
Samuel.  Dr.  Wolff — who  reluctantly  confesses  that  u  the  Jews 
in  Damietta  sent  back  the  Bibles  I  had  given  them,"  and  that, 
"  at  Jerusalem,  the  Jews  burnt  several  of  the  New  Testaments 
I  gave  to  them";}: — has  filled  volumes  with  the  history  of  his 
own  successes,  especially  among  the  Arabs  and  Persians.  Later 
travellers,  who  walked  in  his  footsteps,  thus  correct  the  aberra- 
tions of  his  self-love.  "I  have  frequently,"  says  Captain  Wil- 
braham,  "heard  Persians  boast  of  having  worsted  in  argument 
the  well-known  missionary,  Wolff."  §  But  here  are  still  more 
curious  revelations  of  the  same  kind.  Meshed  and  Bokhara, 
like  Bassora,  are  a  long  way  off,  and  far  removed  from  the  high- 
way of  European  tourists;  and  Dr.  Wolff  evidently  believed, 
like  Mr.  Samuel,  when  he  recounted  his  own  apostolic  fortitude 
and  missionary  triumphs  in  these  ancient  and  remote  cities,  that 
he  was  at  least  quite  safe  from  the  unseasonable  corrections  of 


*  Narrative  of  a  Mission  to  India,  by  V.  Fontanier,  Vice  Consul  of  France  at 
Bassora,  cli.  xvi.,  p.  344. 

f  Missionary  Researches  in  Armenia,  by  Eli  Smith  and  H.  Dwight,  Letter 
iv.,  p.  72. 

i  Journal,  pp.  152-244. 

§  Travels  in  the  Trans-Caucasian  Provinces  of  Russia,  by  Captain  Richard 
Wilbrahain,  ch.  xxxiv.,  p.  389. 


46  *  CHAPTER   I. 

any  other  writer.  Yain  confidence  !  "  The  selamliks,  bows, 
and  benedictions,"  says 'General  Ferrier,  who  fortunately  trav- 
ersed these  regions  on  his  way  from  Persia  to  the  Punjaub, 
"  which  Dr.  Wolff  talks  of  having  received  on  his  entering 
Bokhara,  existed  only  in  his  own  fertile  imagination.  The  little 
children,  instead  of  kissing  the  hem  of  his  robe,"  as  he  compla- 
cently relates,  "  abused  and  threw  stones  at  him.  This  increased 
his  fears,  and  he  endeavored  to  propitiate  all  who  came  near 
him  with  money  and  presents.  The  first  day  of  the  Doctor's 
reception  by  the  Emir  Nasser  Ullah  Khan,  he  was  in  such  a 
state  of  alarm  that  he  did  not  seem  to  know  where  he  was ;  he 
could  not  recognize  the  persons  near  him  ;  his  language  was 
incoherent,  and  he  trembled  violently.  The  Emir  observed 
this,  and  had  pity  upon  him.  Take  this  wretched  man  home, 
he  said  to  the  master  of  the  ceremonies,  he  is  incapable  of  con- 
versing, and  the  terror  he  manifests  distresses  me."* 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  mode  in  which  such  reputations  are 
sometimes  acquired,  and  even  permanently  maintained,  in  the 
British  Isles,  that  a  new  work  by  Dr.  Wolif  is  announced  by 
his  London  publishers,  in  1860,  as  "The  Travels  and  Adven- 
tures of  Dr.  Wolff,  known  throughout  the  world  as  the  great 
Bokhara  Missionary , ,"f 

But  if  Dr.  Wolff  could  thus  announce  himself  in  England, 
his  name  appears  to  have  attracted  less  honor  in  the  supposed 
scenes  of  his  triumphs. 

"  When  I  returned  to  Meshed,"  says  Ferrier,  "  the  English 
agent,  Mollah  Mehdi,  was  furious  against  Dr.  Wolff,  who  had 
published  a  letter  in  an  eastern  paper,  saying  that  he  had  con- 
verted the  Mollah  to  Christianity.  '  How,'  he  said,  '  could  I 
be  converted  by  the  mediation  of  that  crazy  man  ?  May  the 
head  of  Wolff  be  covered  with  cinders  !  May  he  go  blind  for 
having  told  such  a  falsehood  !'  I  could  only  console  him  by 
promising  to  send  a  letter  from  him  to  Dr.  Wolff,  in  which  he 
would  desire  him  to  retract  his  statement."  ^ 

Such  examples  are  instructive  ;  and  here  is  one  more  of  the 
same  kind.  Dr.  Holt  Yates,  a  friend  and  admirer  of  "  the  great 
Bokhara  Missionary,"  informs  us,  that  he  was  carrying  on  a 
certain  occasion  a  cargo  of  Bibles  from  Smyrna  to  Salonica. 
The  Greek  crew,  less  devout  than  their  countrymen  described 
by  Mr.  Strickland,  thinking  him  a  fit  subject  for  their  playful 
malice,  assured  him  that  "  a  pirate"  was  following  the  vessel. 
Here  was  another  trial,  and  he  endured  it  with  his  usual 
fortitude.  "  He  insisted,"  says  Dr.  Yates,  "  on  the  sailors 

*  Caravan  Journeys  in  Persia,  Afghanistan,  &c.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  128,  ed.  Seymour, 
f  The  Times,  May  11,  1860. 
\  Ch.  xxxi.,  p.  488. 


THE   BIBLE   AND  THE   HEATHEN.  47 

putting  for  land,  leaving  his  clothes  and  his  Bibles  on  board, 
and  after  wandering  about  for  three  days  without  food,  pre- 
sented himself  before  the  governor  at  Salonica,  in  a  piteous 
plight ;  cut  and  bleeding  from  the  thorns  and  rocks,  to  the  no 
small  amusement  of  the  Mussulman  authorities,  who  fed  and 
clothed  him,  and  sent  him,  by  his  own  desire,  to  Malta."  A 
Ulemah,  however,  "  declared  that  he  must  either  be  very  wicked 
or  mad,  and  that  if  he  were  allowed  to  live,  he  should  be  locked 
up."* 

Dr.  Wolff  himself,  who  was  an  active  agent  of  the  Bible 
Society,  furnishes  a  suitable  appendage  to  these  anecdotes, 
when  he  tells  us,  that  he  used  to  offer  his  Bibles  even  to  the 
Bedouin  Arabs,  though  they  were  as  incapable  of  reading  them 
as  their  own  camels,  because  one  of  them,  to  whom  he  had  prob- 
ably given  something  besides  a  Bible,  "  promised  to  get  it  read 
whenever  any  one  came  to  his  house  who  could  read."f 

Mr.  Walpole,  who  visited  the  same  lands  a  few  years  later, 
makes  the  following  judicious  reflection  upon  Bible  distribution 
in  the  homes  of  the  Arab  and  Mahometan :  "  We  vend  our 
Bibles  as  we  vend  waste-paper.  Is  the  Koran  treated  thus? 
No  instance  can  be  shown  where  a  good  Moslem,  whatever  his 
distress,  will  sell  his  heaven-sent  book.  They  generally  give  it 
as  a  present,  or  exchange  it." J  And  Mr.  Coleridge,  alluding 
to  the  universal  profanation  of  the  Scriptures,  so  carelessly  flung 
about  by  Protestants  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  says:  "I  ask 
myself,  what  idea  these  persons  form  of  the  Bible,  that  they 
should  use  it  in  a  way  in  which  they  themselves  use  no  other 
book?"§ 

But  it  is  time  to  conclude,  and  we  can  hardly  do  so  more 
appropriately  than  by  the  following  description,  given  by  Ad- 
miral Sir  Adolphus  Slade,  of  the  actual  results  of  Bible  distribu- 
tion in  the  Levant :  "  The  lavish  distribution  of  Bibles,"  he  says, 
"  is  distressing  to  behold.  Did  the  members  and  supporters  of 
the  Bible  Society  know  how  they  go,  how  they  are  received,  they 
would  infinitely  prefer  giving  their  money  to  their  poor  country- 
men. But  then  the  patronage  of  appointing  missionaries, 
Bible  distributors,  &c.,  would  cease.  Let  us  examine  what 
becomes  of  these  books. 

r  "  Bibles  are  given  to  the  Turks,  printed  very  rationally  in  the 
Turkish  character, — one  hundred  and  ninety -nine  out  of  two 
hundred  cannot  read  !  A  Turk  takes  one  of  them  as  he  would 
a  treatise  on  fluxions,  or  a  life  of  Lord  Bacon,  and  with  about 

*  Modern  History  of  Egypt,  by  W.  Holt  Yates.  M.D.  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  592. 

f  Journal,  p.  176. 

I  The  Ansayrii  by  the  Hon.  F.  Walpole,  vol.  iii..  ch.  iii.,  p.  77. 

§  Literary  Remains  of  8.  T.  Coleridge,  vol.  i.,  p.  320. 


48  CHAPTER   I. 

as  much  interest  ...  he  either  keeps  it  as  a  curiosity,  or  tears 
it  as  waste-paper.** 

"  The  Hebrews  take  the  Bible  with  great  pleasure,  because 
saving  them  expense :  they  carefully  destroy  the  New  Testa- 
ments, and  place  the  Old  Testaments  in  their  synagogues,  sneer- 
ing at  the  donors. 

uThe  Albanians  make  wadding  for  their  guns  of  the  leaves 
of  the  Society's  Bibles,  if  they  have  no  other. "f 

And  so  he  continues  an  enumeration,  which,  coupled  with 
what  we  have  already  heard  of  the  fate  of  Protestant  Bibles  in 
so  many  other  parts  of  the  world,  brings  us  naturally  to  the 
conclusion  suggested  by  Mr.  Walpole  and  Admiral  Slade,  that 
the  Bible  Society, — which  has  never  converted  a  single  soul  in 
any  region  of  the  earth,  and  in  England  itself  has  seen  a  growth 
of  practical  heathenism  so  exactly  proportioned  to  its  own 
development,  that  at  length  five  millions  of  our  population  are 
officially  declared  to  "  profess  no  religion  whatever," — is  simply 
a  vast  and  successful  organization  for  supplying  the  heathen 
world  gratuitously  with  waste-paper.  It  is  to  be  presumed 
that  its  subscribers  deem  this  a  worthy  object,  and  not  too 
dearly  purchased  by  the  millions  which  have  been  expended 
upon  it.  The  Apostles  adopted  a  different  mode,  or  Christi- 
anity would  have  been  still  in  its  cradle. 


AMERICA. 

VIII.  When  we  have  given  two  or  three  examples  of  the 
same  proceedings  in  America,  though  far  from  exhausting  a 
subject  which  admits  of  ampler  illustration,  we  shall  have  said 
enough  for  our  present  purpose.  In  1846,  the  single  tribe  of 
Choctaw  Indians,  and  others  were  treated  quite  as  liberally, 
was  enriched  by  the  donation  of  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
thousand  printed  pages;  from  which  we  infer  that  these  judi- 
cious savages  spend  their  leisure  time  chiefly  in  intellectual 
pursuits.  This  was  apparently  the  impression  of  the  Protes- 
tant agents ;  for  two  years  earlier  this  favored  tribe  had  al- 
ready received  from  the  same  quarter,  but  without  exhausting 
their  mental  activity,  three  million  forty-eight  thousand  one 
hundred  and  fifty  pages  of  Bibles  and  tracts.:):  So  much  for 

*  An  enthusiastic  distributor  of  Bibles  says  of  one  of  the  Turkish  versions 
fabricated  by  the  Bible  Society, "  there  is  not  a  page,  nor  scarcely  a  verse,  in  the 
volume  that  does  not  contain  something  or  other  of  an  objectionable  nature." — 
The  Turkish  New  Testament  incapable  of  Defence,  by  Dr.  Henderson  ;  pref.,  p.  xiv. 

f  Records  of  Travels  in  Turkey,  &c.,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  518. 

\  Religion  in  the  U.  8.  of  America,  by  Rev.  R.  Baird,  book  viii.,  ch.  iii 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE    HEATHEN.  49 

the  Choctaws.  The  Cherokees,  perhaps  because  they  had  dis- 
played a  less  eager  appetite  for  sacred  literature,  had  only  ob- 
tained up  to  the  same  date  two  millions  two  hundred  and 
three  thousand  two  hundred  pages ;  but  we  may  believe  they 
were  satisfied  with  this  lesser  quantity,  which  represents  con- 
siderably more  than  seven  thousand  volumes  of  three  hundred 
pages  each.  The  Sioux,  great  contemners  of  studious  habits, 
were  put  off  with  less  than  two  hundred  thousand  pages  ;  and 
the  Ojibbeways  received  something  under  a  million.  We 
shall  see  hereafter,  by  the  ample  confessions  of  the  mission- 
aries, what  use  they  made  of  them. 

But  even  the  donations  to  Choctaws,  Sioux,  and  Ojibbeways, 
are  perhaps  surpassed  by  that  offered  to  the  JSTipmuks,  or  Na- 
ticks,  at  an  earlier  period.  Mr.  Eliot,  as  Dr.  Douglas  notices 
in  his  History  of  America,  translated  the  Bible  into  their  lan- 
guage. "  It  was  done  with  good  design,  but  must  be  reckoned 
among  the  otiosorum  hominum  negotia.  Of  the  JSTaticks,  at 
present  (1745),  there  are  not  twenty  families  subsisting,  and 
scarce  any  of  these  can  read.  Cui  bonof"*  Dr.  Livingstone 
also  mentions  an  equally  profitable  version  by  the  same  hand, 
which  the  celebrated  African  traveller  calls  "  God's  word  in  a 
language  which  no  living  tongue  can  articulate,  nor  living 
mortal  understand. "f 

We  are  approaching  the  end,  but  must  not  conclude  without 
observing,  that  even  the  natives  of  South  America,  though 
Christians,  have  been  remembered  with  favor  by  Protestant 
Bible  Societies.  Three  thousand  three  hundred  Spanish  Bibles 
were  sent  at  one  time  to  Mexico,  and  many  more  afterwards, 
as  well  as  a  due  supply  to  Brazil,  Buenos  Ay  res,  Chili,  New 
Grenada,  and  other  provinces.  Dr.  Olin,  the  Wesleyan  presi- 
dent of  the  college  at  Harvard,  honestly  records  of  one  of 
these  operations,  that  it  was  "  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  make 
some  impression  on  the  native  Catholic  population ;"  but  the 
mission  established  with  that  object  at  Buenos  Ay  res  failed  so 
decisively,  that  he  prudently  adds, — "  We  trust  it  will  inspire 
the  board  with  great  caution  in  entertaining  new  projects  for 
missions  among  Catholics.":): 

Of  a  similar  attempt  in  Brazil,  less  ingenuous  historians  of 
the  same  nation  relate,  with  much  animation,  that  "  there  was 
a  rush  of  applicants  for  the  sacred  volume."  They  even 
recommend  urgently  "  a  missionary  colporteur  to  go  from 


*  History  of  the  Indians  of  North  America,  by  Samuel  G.  Drake,  book  v.T 
ch.  vii.,  p.  114. 

f  Missionary  Travels  in  South  Africa,  ch.  vi.,  p.  115. 
\  Works,  vol.ii.,  p.  423. 

5 


50  CHAPTER   I. 

colony  to  colony  throughout  Brazil  with  Bibles  and  tracts." 
DivOlin's  counsel  was  perhaps  more  judicious;  for  even  if 
their  narrative  were  true,  it  would  only  prove, — since  they  do 
not  pretend,  after  a  residence  of  many  years,  to  have  gained 
so  much  as  a  single  proselyte, — that  when  the  Brazilians  had 
received  their  Bibles,  they  were  only  the  more  confirmed  in 
their  own  faith.  They  confess  too,  that  they  had  entertained 
the  not  unreasonable  suspicion,  that  the  "rush"  only  indicated 
"  that  some  plan  had  been  concerted  for  getting  the  books  de- 
stroyed."* And  an,  English  clergyman  ascertained,  thirty 
years  ago,  not  only  that  Brazil  had  less  need  of  these  gentle- 
men than  they  supposed,  but  that  "the  noble  public  literary 
institution  at  Rio  Janeiro  is  particularly  distinguished  for  its 
collection  ofjfibles,  more  extensive,  perhaps,  than  in  any  other 
library  in  the  world. "f 

At  the  town  of  Mendoza,  in  the  Pampas, — for  no  place  is  too 
remote  or  obscure  to  escape  attention, — an  English  missionary 
agent  relates,  in  1840,  that  he  offered  his  Bibles  to  a  book- 
seller for  sixpence  each,  but  that  "  after  remaining  on  his  shelf 
for  some  days  without  a  purchaser,  he  recommended  me  to 
withdraw  them  as  unsalable."  So  he  desired  him  to  give 
them  away  4 

In  Guatemala,  another  English  distributor  was  peremptorily 
ordered  by  the  President  to  quit  the  country,  and  suffered  what 
he  calls  a  "  violent  extramission  from  the  capital."  This  mis- 
sionary relates,  in  1850,  that  he  vainly  invoked  the  protection 
of  Mr.  Chatfield,  the  British  consul,  who  "  declined  to  inter- 
fere, and  rudely  ordered  me  to  leave  the  consulate."  lie  pro- 
poses, however,  to  resume  his  distributions,  "  so  soon  as  the 
door  shall  be  again  opened  in  Providence" — of  which,  after  the 
lapse  of  ten  years,  there  appears  no  immediate  prospect.g 

In  the  capital  of  New  Grenada,  we  learn  from  a  Times  cor- 
respondent in  1860,  "  all  the  Bibles  distributed  by  the  London 
Bible  Society  were  collected  and  burnt  in  the  public  square." 
The  British  minister,  it  is  added,  was  indignant,  "  but  the 
American  minister  was  present,  countenancing  the  outrage."! 
Perhaps  the  latter  was  sufficiently  intelligent  to  comprehend 
that  the  act  was  a  protest,  not  against  the  Bible,  but  only 
against  the  Bible  Society.  He  may  also  have  known, 
that  in  this  very  city,  the  Holy  Scriptures  had  been  studied 


*  Brazil  and  the  Brazilians,  by  Rev.  D.  P.  Kidder,  D.D.,  and  Rev.  J.  C. 
Fletcher,  ch.  xiv.,  pp.  256-340. 

f  Notices  of  Brazil,  by  Rev.  R.  Walsh,  LL.D.,  vlo.  i.,  p.  438. 
i  A  Visit  to  the  Indians  of  Chili,  by  Captain  Allen  F.  Gardiner,  p.  45. 
£  The  Gospel  in  Central  America,  by  Rev.  F.  Crowe,  ch.  xiv.,  pp.  511,  78, 87. 
I  The  Times,  February  23, 1860. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  51 

with  so  much  zeal  and  success,  even  in  the  public  schools,  that 
the  scholars,  as  a  British  officer  reported  thirty  years  ago,  "  ac- 
quitted themselves  excessively  well  in  replying  to  questions  in 
the  Old  and  New  Testament."*  They  had  apparently  not 
much  need  of  the  doubtful  translations  of  the  Bible  Society, 
and  might  be  pardoned  for  throwing  its  present  into  the  fire. 

Lastly,  the  Rev.  Walter  Golton  relates, — as  if  to  enforce  Dr. 
Olin's  prudent  admonition,  and  to  show  that  the  warning 
applied  equally  to  every  part  of  South  America, — that  in  Chili 
also,  to  which  State  another  cargo  of  Protestant  Bibles  had 
been  dispatched,  a  general  procession  of  the  inhabitants  was 
formed,  "  and  they  were  burnt  in  presence  of  the  assembled 

multitude."! 

Such,  by  the  testimony  of  their  own  agents,  have  been  the 
unvarying  results,  without  so  much  as  a  solitary  exception,  at 
any  time,  or  in  any  part  of  the  world,  of  that  almost  incredible 
dispersion  of  Bibles  which  even  this  imperfect  sketch  of  the 
operations  of  Bible  societies,  both  English  and  American,  has 
disclosed  to  us.  Employed  in  all  lands  for  the  vilest  purposes, 
despised  by  the  more  enlightened  heathen  for  their  vulgarity 
and  incoherence,  cast  into  the  sea  by  Mahometans,  and  con- 
sumed in  the  flames  by  Christians,  not  a  trace  remains,  after  a 
brief  space,  of  the  millions  of  books  with  which  vague  religious 
sentiment  has  inundated  the  world. 

Yet  the  Bible  Society,  whose  operations  we  have  been 
obliged  to  notice  thus  tediously  because  of  their  intimate  con- 
nection with  those  of  Protestant  missions,  constantly  appealing 
to  the  one  religious  instinct  which,  however  barren  in  actual 
results,  is  still  deeply  rooted  in  the  English  mind,  has  outlived 
the  conscientious  protests  of  its  own  agents,  as  well  as  the,  more 
animated  and  scientific  assaults  of  its  enemies.  In  vain  the 
most  learned  and  competent  witnesses  expose  the  hollowness  of 
its  boastful  pretensions.  "  It  appears,"  says  Dr.  Herbert  Marsh, 
"  that  among  the  European  languages  in  which  the  British  and 
Foreign  Bible  Society  has  printed,  or  assisted  in  printing,  the 
Scriptures,  there  is  not  one  into  which  the  Scriptures  had  not 
been  already  translated  !"  But  this  does  not  prevent  its  orators 
from  asserting,  with  cairn  self-possession,  that  but  for  its  labors 
these  versions  would  have- been  unknown.  Vainly  Dr.  Marsh 
cites,  amongst  other  examples,  their  Polish  version.  "  We 
shall  find,"  says  that  learned  person,  but  he  only  wasted  his 
words,  "  that  besides  four  editions  of  the  whole  Bible,  and  two 


*  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  Colombia,  by  Captain  Charles  Stuart  Cochrane, 
vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  287. 
f  Incidents  of  a  Cruise  to  California,  ch.  vi.,  p.  168  (1851). 


52  CHAPTER   I. 

of  the  New  Testament,  published  by  the  Catholics ;  besides  two 
editions  of  the  whole  Bible,  and  four  editions  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, published  by  the  Socinians;  not  less  than  nine  editions  of 
the  whole  Bible,  and  eight  editions  of  the  New  Testament,  have 
been  published  by  the  Polish  Calvinists."  And  then  he  adds, 
that  since  "the  great  body  of  the  Polish  nation  consists  of 
Catholics,  and  of  the  remainder  the  majority  consists  of  Jews," 
fifteen  editions  of  the  whole  Bible  B,U&  fourteen  separate  versions 
of  the  New  Testament  might  have  satisfied  the  wants  of  the 
country,  or  at  least  admonished  the  Bible  Society  not  to  pretend 
that  Poland  owed  the  Bible  to  English  zeal.  But  the  Bible 
Society  knew  its  subscribers,  and  only  smiled  at  Dr.  Marsh.* 

And  not  only  have  the  directors  of  this  institution  dispersed 
their  crude  and  unprofitable  translations,  to  the  grievous  detri- 
ment of  Christianity,  in  lands  which  the  providence  of  the 
Church  had  endowed  with  truer  versions  long  before  this 
Society  had  come  into  existence ;  not  only  have  its  own  agents 
discovered,  by  personal  experience  and  observation,  that  the 
Catholic  Church  has  published  accurate  translations  of  Holy 
Scripture  in  the  language  of  every  people  whom  she  has 
gathered  into  her  fold  ;  they  have  even  confessed,  with  unex- 
pected candor,  that  many  of  these  have  actually  been  appro- 
priated by  that  very  Society  which  loudly  boasts  to  have  every- 
where taken  the  initiative,  and  then  circulated  as  its  own  work ! 
Thus,  in  1818,  we  are  told,  "the  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
Society  purchased  one  thousand  five  hundred  copies  of  the 
ancient  Armenian  Testament  from  the  Armeno-Catholic  College 
in  the  island  of  St.  Lazarus,  Yenice;  .  .  .  subsequently,  still 
larger  numbers  were  procured  from  the  same  quarter,  and:  put 
in  circulation  chiefly  among  the  Armenians  of  Turkey."f  The 
Amharic  version — the  principal  dialect  of  Abyssinia — prepared 
with  great  labor  at  Cairo  under  the  auspices  of  the  French 
consul,  was  also  purchased  by  the  English  society  with  a  simi- 
lar object.:):  The  Arabic  version  which  the  Bible  Society 
formerly  circulated  in  Syria,  was  also,  as  Mr.  Jowett  confesses, 
"the  Propaganda  edition,"  printed  at  Kome  in  1671,  more 
than  a  century  before  that  Society  was  created,  "  expressly  for 
the  use  of  the  Arabian  Christians."§  Of  the  EtJiiopic,  one  of 
their  own  agents  says, — "  In  former  times  the  Etniopic  was 
much  cultivated  by  the  Jesuit  missionaries ;  to  them  we  are 
indebted  for  the  New  Testament  in  that  language."!  The 

*  An  Inquiry  relative  to  the  B.  and  F.  Bible  Society,  by  Herbert  Marsh,  D.D., 
p.  67. 

f  Dwight's  CJiristianity  in  Turkey,  ch.  i.,  p.  19. 
i  Alyssinie,  par  M.  A.  N.  Desvergers,  p.  39. 
§  Researches,  &c.,  app.  p.  453, 
|  Ibid.,  p.  196. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  53 

same  tiling  is  true  of  the  Tartar  version,  which  was  published, 
as  JSTeander  admits,  nearly  five  hundred  years  before  Protes- 
tant missions  began  ;*  it  is  true  of  the  Chinese,  in  which,  as 
Mr.  Medhurst  allows,  the  Church  anticipated  the  Sects  by  more 
than  two  centuries  ;f  it  is  true  of  the  Cingalese,  in  which  Mr. 
Harvard  found  a  copy,  "the  work  of  some  Roman  Catholic 
missionary,"  at  least  as  remote  in  its  origin  ;;f  it  is  true  of  the 
Persian,  in  which  tongue  the  Gospels  were  published  at  Kaffa 
in  1341  ;§  it  is  true  of  the  Russian,  which  was  printed  at  Al- 
cala  in  1515,  and  again  at  Venice  in  1518,  though  Alexis,  the 
father  of  Peter  the  Great,  could  hardly  find  a  copy  of  the  Sla- 
vonic Scriptures  in  the  whole  Russian  empire;]  it  is  true  of 
the  Polish  and  all  European  dialects,  as  well  as  of  the  Coptic, 
Tamvl,  Annamite,  Malayalim,  and  many  other  oriental  ver- 
sions. And  thus  it  is  proved,  by  the  evidence  of  their  own 
witnesses,  that  even  in  that  which  they  have  boastfully  claimed 
as  their  peculiar  work,  the  Sects  have  only  done,  tardily  and 
without  fruit,  what  the  Church  had  already  accomplished  in  all 
lands  with  such  signal  success,  that  her  enemies  have  eagerly 
appropriated  the  treasures  which  she  had  lavishly  dispensed, 
though  they  could  only  present  to  their  disciples  a  mutilated 
counterfeit  of  gifts,  which  in  their  rude  hands  lost  all  their 
value.  Even  in  their  boasted  distribution  of  the  Scriptures, 
they  confess  that  they  have  but  circulated  borrowed  gold, 
which  turned  to  dross  at  their  touch.  "  The  best  translations 
of  foreign  Bibles  issued  by  our  Bible  Society,"  says  one  who 
was  himself  a  distributor  of  thousands,  "are  reprints  from 
those  made  by  the  Propaganda  at  Eome  I"1!"  In  China  and 
India  we  have  seen,  by  their  own  admissions,  how  the  Protes- 
tant translators,  while  attempting  to  imitate  the  Catholic  ver- 
sions, only  succeeded  in  caricaturing  them,  through  lack  of 
mental  and  literary  qualifications.  "  In  the  field  of  philology," 
says  Sir  John  Bowring,  repeating  the  eulogy  so  often  pro- 
nounced by  men  of  oriental  learning,  "the  world  owes  much 
to  Catholic  missionaries ;"  yet  their  Protestant  imitators  could 
not  even  make  any  profitable  use  of  their  labors,  though  their 
own,  in  a  multitude  of  instances,  were  founded  upon  them. 
The  very  books  which  they  used,  even  their  dictionaries  and 

*  History  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  Church,  vol.  vii.,  p.  76. 

f  China,  &c.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  248. 

j  Narrative  of  the  Mission  to  Ceylon,  by  Rev.  W.  Harvard,  introd.,  p.  64. 

§  The  Crimea;  its  Ancient  and  Modern  History :  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Mil- 
ner,  M.A. ;  ch.  v.,  p.  130. 

I  Recherches  Historiques-.  sur  I'origine  des  Sarmates,  des  Esclavons  et  des 
Slaves,  par  Mgr.  de  Bohusz,  Archeveque-  de  Mohilew :  tome  iii..  ch.  xxvii  p 
534.  (St.  Petersburg,  1812.) 

•ft  Trawls  and  Adventures  of  Dr.  Wol'ff,  ch.  ix.,  p.  182. 


54  CHAPTER   I. 

grammars,  were  not  unfrequently  borrowed  from  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries. Thus  Dr.  Marsh  man,  of  Serampore, — whose  own 
compositions,  like  those  of  Carey,  have  been  abandoned  as 
worthless  even  by  his  co-religionists, — acknowledged  that  he 
"  owed  his  first  sight  of  a  Latin-Chinese  dictionary  to  the  po- 
liteness of  the  Catholic  missionary,  Pere  Eodriguez,  who  had 
spent  twenty  years  in  China."*  In  like  manner,  when  Schree- 
ter,  an  agent  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  wished  to 
translate  the  Scriptures  into  the  Bootan  dialect,  u  he  obtained 
a  manuscript  dictionary,  Tibet  and  Italian,  the  work  of  some 
Romish  missionary. "f  And  in  our  own  day,  we  find  in  South 
America  an  English  Protestant  agent  encouraging  a  missionary 
of  his  sect  to  learn  the  language  of  the  Chilian  Indians,  because 
"in  this  study  he  will  be  materially  aided  by  a  dictionary  com- 
piled by  the  early  Popish  missionaries;"^:  while  in  the  north- 
ern continent,  the  capture  by  the  English  of  the  papers  of  the 
martyr  Sebastian  Rasles,  we  are  told  was  an  "important 
event,"  because  amongst  them  "there  was  found  a  vocabulary 
of  the  Abenaki  language,  which  the  missionary  had  compiled, 
and  which  has  been  preserved  to  this  day."§ 

But  though  they  appreciated,  they  commonly  used  these  in- 
dispensable aids  without  the  slightest  acknowledgment,  and 
even,  when  they  thought  they  could  do  so  with  safety,  affected 
to  be  themselves  the  authors  of  the  very  works  of  which  their 
own  were  only  a  feeble  and  inaccurate  copy.  "  Indeed,"  says 
one  who  was  himself  a  linguist,  a  Protestant,  and  a  missionary, 
"  there  are  not  greater  plagiarists  than  some  of  the  mission- 
aries."! And  in  this  singular  commerce  there  seems  to  have 
been  a  rivalry  between  Russians  and  Protestants.  Thus  Klap- 
roth  detected  that  the  descriptive  part  of  Timkowski's  well- 
known  work  on  China  "  is  taken  almost  entirely  from  that  of 
Father  Gaubil,  whom,"  the  great  orientalist  significantly  adds, 
"  M.  Timkowski  has  forgotten  to  name."T  In  like  manner,  when 
M.  Papin  asked  the  Protestant  director  of  the  English  college  at 
Malacca,  in  1834,  for  a  copy  of  the  Chinese  grammar  of  Father 
Premare,  the  celebrated  author  of  the  Notitia  Linguae  SiniccB, 
which  had  been  reprinted  at  the  college,  the  following  singular 
fact  was  revealed  :  "  When  we  asked  the  minister  for  it  under 
this  name,  he  appeared  astonished,  having  never  known  of  the 
existence  of  Father  Premare,  much  less  that  he  was  the  author 


Chinese  Grammar,  by  J.  Marsliman,  D.D.,  preface,  p.  2. 

Periodical  Accounts,  vol.  i.,  p.  60. 

Gardiner,  Visit  to  the  Indians  of  Chili,  ch.  vi.,  p.  190. 

Bancroft,  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  ii.,  p.  940. 
_  Wolff,  ch.  xi.,  p.  205. 
"If  Timkowski's  Travels,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii ,  p.  127  ;  note  by  Klaproth. 


THE    BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN  55 

of  this  Grammar ;  for  though  it  is  simply  a  literal  translation  of 
that  of  the  famous  Jesuit,  the  Protestant  editor  had  attributed 
to  himself  the  whole  merit."*  And  once  more :  "  When  the 
late  minister  Morrison,  of  Canton,  after  having  procured  the 
Chinese  Dictionary  of  Father  Basil,  printed  it  anew,  lie  an- 
nounced to  the  learned  world  that  he  was  himself  the  author  of 
it."  The  last  case  is  confirmed  by  the  authority  of  Klaproth, 
from  which  there  is  no  appeal,  who  not  only  suspected  the  lar- 
ceny, but  detected,  by  actual  collation,  that  it  was  very  clumsily 
executed,  and  that  "Morrison's  edition  was  full  of  faults."! 

And  now  we  may  conclude.  We  have  heard  enough,  per- 
haps too  much,  both  as  to  its  principle  and  its  result,  of  the 
method  by  which  the  Protestant  communities  seek  to  convert 
the  heathen  world.  Its  principle  was  not  only  unknown  to  the 
Apostles,  but  emphatically  condemned  and  disavowed  by  every 
act  of  their  missionary  career ;  its  result  has  been — on  the  one 
hand,  a  wider  and  more  universal  profanation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  than  the  evil  spirits  could  have  accomplished  by  any 
less  effective  agency ;  on  the  other,  to  confirm,  and  even,  in  a 
certain  sense,  to  justify  the  pagan  world  in  rejecting  a  religion 
presented  to  them  after  such  a  fashion.  We  are  now^  to  com- 
pare this  method,  in  every  province  of  the  earth,  with  all 
fidelity  and  minuteness,  with  that  earlier  one  which  St.  Paul 
employed  in  the  first  century,  St.  Augustine  in  the  sixth,  St. 
Francis  in  the  sixteenth,  and  which  Catholic  missionaries 
throughout  the  world  still  pursue  in  our  own  day.  The  Church, 
we  shall  see,  does  not  attempt,  any  more  than  her  first  Apostles 
did,  to  convert  the  heathen  world  by  the  circulation  of  books 
which  were  not  given  for  any  such  purpose,  which  pagans  could 
not  possibly  understand,  even  if  they  were  correctly  translated, 
and  which  they  have  only,  as  their  distributors  sorrowfully  attest, 
abused,  ridiculed,  and  defiled.  But  she  knows  what  her  Lord 
has  given  her  in  this  treasure,  and  how  to  use  it.  "  I  have  con- 
versed with  many  Catholic  ecclesiastics,"  is  the  honest  confes- 
sion of  one  who  spent  a  fruitless  life  in  the  distribution  of  Prot- 
estant Bibles,  "  and  never  have  I  heard  one  voice  lifted  up 
against  it ;  all  that  they  require  is,  that  the  edition  be  conform- 
able to  the  authorized  text."$  When  Dr.  Wolff  visited  the 
school  of  the  Spanish  friars  at  Damascus,  he  relates,  that  "to 
his  utter  astonishment  he  found  that  the  pupils  (several  hun- 
dreds of  them)  had  Arabic  Testaments  and  Arabic  Psalters, 
printed  by  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society ;  and  a  Spanish 

*  Annales,  tome  viii.,  p.  585. 

f  Ap.  Timkowski,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  350  (1827). 

j  Journal  of  Rev.  James  Connor,  in  Jowett's  App.,  p.  452. 


56  CHAPTER  I. 

friar,  who  superintended  the  school,  said  to  Joseph  Wolff,  'Thus 
we  promote,  and  ever  have  promoted,  the  faith  of  the  Holy 
Catholic  Apostolic  Church.'  "*  There  is  nothing  in  this  fact  to 
astonish  a  Catholic.  Before  the  Sects  were,  the  Church  had  so 
well  guarded  that  sacred  Book,  that  the  chief  heresiarch  of 
modern  times  confessed,  "  but  for  her  they  would  never  have 
received  it."f  Arid  this,  as  her  children  know,  was  part  of  her 
office.  That  she  should  not  venerate  the  Divine  Scriptures, 
which  are  so  absolutely  her  own  that  they  were  abandoned  by 
their  Author  to  her  sole  authority  both  to  define  and  promul- 
gate ;  that  she  should  be  indifferent  to  that  sacred  deposit  of 
which  during  long  ages  she  was  the  only  guardian ;  which  the 
incessant  and  life-long  labors  of  her  own  servants  diligently 
preserved  and  multiplied ;  upon  which  all  her  saints  were 
nourished,  and  out  of  which  all  her  doctors  taught ;  which  are 
daily  presented  to  her  priests  in  the  most  solemn  function  of 
their  ministry,  to  be  reverently  kissed  ;  and  which  she  offers  at 
this  hour,  in  every  land,  without  stint  or  measure,  to  all  who 
can  relish  their  sweet  savor ;  this  is  evidently  the  dream  of 
the  fanatic,  or  the  calumny  of  the  false  prophet. ;[  She  is 
guiltless  indeed  of  the  cruel  indecency  of  putting  all  the  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  into  the  hands  of  children,  and  has  not 
read  the  words  of  her  first  Pontiff  §  with  so  little  profit  as  to 
give  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  without  note  or  comment,  to 
women  and  peasants,  or  to  abandon  the  mystic  Apocalypse  to 
the  crude  fancies  of  every  disorderly  dreamer,  or  the  trivial 
exegesis  of  every  inflated  sophist.  And  though,  as  the  ap- 
pointed Teacher  of  the  Nations,  she  has  other  guides  besides  the 
written  word,  being  the  guardian  of  the  apostolic  traditions, 
and  taught  directly  and  unceasingly  by  the  immediate  inspira- 
tion of  the  Holy  Ghost;  yet  the  Church  is,  in  fact  and  deed, 
the  only  true  Bible  Society ;  and  with  such  incomparable  wis- 
dom and  power  does  she  unfold  to  all  her  children  the  myste- 
ries of  that  eternal  Book,  that  even  the  unlettered  peasant, 
taught  at  her  knees,  though  he  has  never  learned  to  read,  at- 
tains a  familiarity  with  its  hidden  truths,  a  keen  and  living 
perception  of  its  holiest  doctrines,  compared  with  which  the 
bald  and  superficial  word-knowledge  of  the  subtlest  mind 
beyond  her  pale  is  gross  darkness.] 

*  Travels  and  Adventures  of  Dr.  Wolff,  ch.  ix.,  p.  181. 
f  Luther,  Comment,  in  S.  Joan.  Evangel. 

•  \  "  Quid  est  Scriptura  sacra,"  said  Gregory  XIII.  to  Philip  of  Spain ;  "  nisi 
Epistola  quaedam  omnipotentis  Dei  ad  creaturam  suam?  Nihil  autem  sapientius 
Deo,  nihil  melius,  nihil  nostri  amantius  ;  nihil  igitur  ejus  scriptura  prsestantius, 
nihil  utilius,  nihil  necessarius." — Ap.  Theiner,  Annal.  Ecdesiast.,  tome  i.,  p.  80. 
2  Pet.  iii.  16. 
"  The  Holy  Book,"  says  one  who  is  at  once  the  most  popular  and  the  most 


THE  BIBLE  AND  THE  HEATHEN.  57 

It  is  by  virtue  of  this  Divine  power,  which  she  alone  possesses, 
and  of  which  we  are  about  to  trace  the  action  in  every  land, 
that  even  the  neophyte  of  Eastern  Asia,  but  yesterday  a  Bud- 
dhist or  a  Confucian,  is  to-day  a  devout  and  enlightened  believer, 
and  will  be  to-morrow  a  martyr.  She  has  placed  no  book  in  his 
hands, — she  has  even  warned  him  against  the  ignoble  versions 
which  dishonor  the  revelation  of  God,  and  expose  Christianity 
to  the  derision  of  the  heathen, — yet  her  penetrating  voice  has 
reached  the  depths  of  his  heart,  and  in  her  minister  he  lias  rec- 
ognized a  prophet  of  the  living  God.*  Let  us  enter,  then,  with- 
out further  delay,  upon  the  historical  investigation  which  we 
have  proposed  to  ourselves,  and  which  alone  can  reveal  to  us 
the  process  by  which  this  incomparable  victory  is  accomplished. 
Let  us  examine,  by  the  aid  of  Protestant  witnesses,  the  contrast 
which  exists  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  missions  to  the 
heathen.  Old  fields  of  controversy  are  exhausted,  but  a  new  one 
claims,  and  will  repay,  our  attention.  At  length  we  can  invite 
men  to  an  inquiry  which  will  test  to  the  uttermost  both  the 
Church  and  the  Sects.  We  are  going  to  see  them  both  in  action. 
The  conversion  of  the  heathen  world,  at  once  the  noblest  arid  the 
most  arduous  labor  to  which  the  best  and  wisest  of  our  race 
have  ever  devoted  their  lives,  is  not  less  a  miracle  of  Divine 
power  than  the  creation  of  the  physical  world.  Both  are  equally 
impossible  to  human  skill,  unaided  by  the  omnipotence  of  the 
Most  High.  'Yet  man  cannot  even  form  any  conception  of  the 
Christian  Church  which  shall  exclude  this  fundamental  idea  of 
her  office,  that  she  is  able  to  convert  the  Gentiles.  For  this  she 
was  created.  This  is  what  her  Founder  expects  her  to  do. 
And  it  is  He  who  admonished  us  to  apply  the  supreme  test 
which  we  are  about  to  employ,  when  He  declared,  in  ages  long 
past,  that  none  but  her  messengers  should  prevail  in  that  super- 
human warfare.  "They  shall  build  the  places  that  have  been 
waste  from  of  old  ....  And  they  shall  know  their  seed  among 


influential  spiritual  writer  of  our  age  and  country,  "  lies  like  a  bunch  of  myrrh 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  a  power  of  sanctification  like  to  which,  in  kind  or 
in  degree,  there  is  no  other,  except  the  sacraments  of  the  Precious  Blood." — 
Dr.  Faber,  The  Creator  and  the  Creature,  book  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  69. 

*  "  And  certainly,  if  any  thing  were  wanting  to  justify  the  Latin  Church,  it 
would  be  found  in  the  use  made  of  the  Bible  by  those  who  have  rebelled  against 
her  authority,  and  in  the  results  which  have  followed  and  which  still  follow 
daily  from  their  use  of  it.  Perceiving  with  the  eyes  of  the  spirit  the  strong  and 
fierce  devil  that  was  entering  into  the  Teutonic  nations,  and  was  tempting  them 
to  abuse  the  printing-press  and  the  Scriptures  to  their  hurt,  the  Roman  Church 
might  seem,  and  may  still  seem  to  superficial  or  prejudiced  observers,  to  direct 
against  the  Scriptures  themselves  that  hostility  which  is  really  directed  against 
the  evil  spirit  by  whose  hand  and  mouth  they  are  produced." — Dissertations  on 
the  Orthodox  Church,  by  Rev.  W.  Palmer,  Diss.  vii.,  \,  135. 


58  CHAPTER   I. 

the  Gentiles,  and  their  offspring  in  the  midst  of  peoples :  all 
that  shall  see  them  shall  know  them,  that  these  are  the  seed 
which  the  Lord  hath  blessed."* 

If,  then,  we  should  discover,  by  the  application  of  this  divine 
test,  that,  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  God  has  given  to  one 
Institution,  and  to  no  other,  the  might  and  the  wisdom  by 
which  this  miracle  is  accomplished  ;  if  history  should  teach  us, 
by  the  combined  testimon3T  of  all  nations  and  sects,  that  He  has 
lavished  upon  one  class  alone  the  highest  gifts  and  graces  which 
the  Creator  can  bestow  or  the  creature  use,  while  he  has  con- 
stantly refused  them  to  every  other;  if  the  messengers  of  the 
Church  seem  to  be  everywhere  raised,  by  virtue  of  the  apos- 
tolic vocation,  above  human  frailty,  while  the  emissaries  of 
the  Sects,  who  dare  not  so  much  as  claim  that  vocation, 
become  a  jest  among  those  who  reject  their  religion  and  a  by- 
word among  those  who  profess  it ;  if  the  myriad  disciples  of 
the  h'rst,  of  whatever  race  or  tongue,  emulate  the  sanctity  and 
heroism  of  the  primitive  converts,  while  the  rare  pensioners  of 
the  second  become  a  scandal  even  to  the  heathen,  mocking  the 
teachers  whose  wages  they  receive,  and  ridiculing  the  tenets 
which  they  affect  to  adopt ;  finally,  if  it  should  appear,  that, 
during  the  last  three  centuries,  as  in  the  fifteen  which  went 
before  them,  one  order  of  missionaries  have  everywhere  ^pre- 
vailed against  the  powers  of  evil,  putting  to  flight  their  armies 
and  setting  their  captives  free,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  most 
absolute  poverty,  and  the  absence  of  all  human  aids  and  ap- 
pliances,— while  their  various  rivals,  scattering  gold  on  every 
side,  and  backed  by  the  whole  power  of  the  two  greatest  na- 
tions of  the  West,  have  only,  by  their  own  confession,  left  the 
heathen  worse  than  they  found  them,  then  we  shall  have  done 
well  in  proposing  a  new  controversy,  differing  from  all  others 
in  this,  that  God  has  already  taken  it  out  of  the  hands  of  men, 
to  decide  it  Himself. 

It  is  with  this  object  that  we  are  going  to  compare,  in  all  the 
world,  Catholic  and  Protestant  missions  to  the  heathen.  If  the 
attempt  has  never  been  made  before,  it  was  because  the  results 
of  the  latter  were  hitherto  imperfectly  known,  or  not  fully  de- 
veloped, or  not  yet  registered  in  the  pages  of  history.  It  was 
impossible  to  obtain  at  an  earlier  date  the  materials  for  the  con- 
trast which  we  are  about  to  trace  in  every  land.  Even  Bossuet 
could  not  have  written  the  Histoire  des  Variations,  if  he  had 
lived  half  a  century  earlier.  The  day  has  arrived  when  a  new 
chapter  may  be  added,  not  inferior  in  interest  or  importance^ 


*  Isaias  Ixi.  4,  9. 


THE   BIBLE   AND   THE   HEATHEN.  59 

though  compiled  by  an  unskilled  and  feeble  hand,  to  those 
which  the  world  owes  to  the  almost  unrivalled  genius  of  the 
Bishop  of  Meaux,  and  of  which  the  effect  was  to  annihilate 
Protestantism  in  France.  Protestant  missions,  it  is  true,  are 
only  of  modern  date ;  but  they  are  at  length  old  enough  to 
enable  us  to  apply  to  them  that  searching  test  from  which 
their  advocates  would  not  willingly  appear  to  shrink,  because 
it  is  that  which  our  Lord  recommended  to  His  disciples  when 
He  said :  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. 


CHAPTEK  II. 

MISSIONS    IN    CHINA 
PART  I. 

CATHOLIC    MISSIONS. 


THERE  is  a  land,  unvisited  by  Persian,  Greek,  or  Roman, 
which  for  ages  stood  apart,  "  like  a  world  within  itself,  in  the 
remote  unknown  Eastern  Asia."*  Kingdoms  arose  and  passed 
away,  nations  were  formed  and  again  dissolved,  while  this 
remained  unconscious  either  of  progress  or  decay.  Yet  here 
more  than  one-third  of  the  whole  human  family  had  their 
dwelling.  Here  "  a  colossal  empire,  thronged  with  innumera- 
ble inhabitants,  skilled  in  the  arts,  in  manufactures,  in  agricul- 
ture, and  in  commerce,"f  wrought  out  its  hidden  destiny  dur- 
ing more  than  two  thousand  years,  without  once  revealing 
to  the  rest  of  mankind  the  secrets  of  its  philosophy,  its  laws, 
or  its  religion. 

At  length  the  gates  of  this  eastern  world  have  been  thrown 
open,  that  Europe  might  enter  in,  and  her  sons  go  to  and  fro  in 
the  land,  bidding  China  look  face  to  face  upon  races  whom  for 
twenty  centuries  she  had  refused  to  know.  And  already  men 
begin  to  speculate  upon  the  issues  of  this  unfinished  conquest. 
Will  China,  they  ask,  consent  to  receive  from  the  West  that 
divine  philosophy  so  long  rejected  with  ignorant  contempt,  and 
unlearn  the  delusions,  both  in  religion  and  science,  which  have 
made  her  people  atheists  and  her  sages  pedants  ?  Such  ques- 
tions, which  lie  beyond  the  limits  of  our  immediate  inquiry,  are 
not  unworthy  of  the  interest  which  they  have  awakened  in  the 
two  most  powerful  nations  of  Europe.  But  our  business  in 
these  pages  is  with  the  past»rather  than  the  future.  What 
China  may  become  hereafter,  we  know  not;  what  she  has  been, 
we  have  learned  from  men  who  did  not  wait  for  a  haughty  and 

*  F.  Von  Schlegel,  Philosophy  of  History,  Lect.  iii. 
f  Hue,  Le  Christianisme  en  Chine,  tome  ii.,  p.  2. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  61 

reluctant  sanction  to  tread  her  forbidden  soil.  For  more  than 
three  hundred  years,  they,  and  only  they,  outstripping  the 
noble  curiosity  of  science,  as  well  as  the  more  eager  impatience 
of  a  commerce  always  striving  to  enlarge  its  sphere,  had  dis- 
played the  superhuman  valor  which  forced  even  an  enemy  to 
confess,  "Where  neither  merchant  nor  traveller  has  penetrated, 
the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries  have  found  their  way."*  It 
was  from  them  that  Europe  received  the  only  exact  knowledge 
which  it  possessed  of  this  remote  land  ;  for  though  others,  at  a 
later  date,  moved  by  the  desire  of  gain,  and  accepting  the  hu- 
miliations by  which  alone  it  could  be  secured,  found  a  hiding- 
place  rather  than  a  home  in  some  of  her  seaport  towns ;  the 
missionaries  of  the  Cross  alone — in  defiance  of  every  menace, 
of  torture,  and  of  death — have  braved  the  capricious  fury  of 
her  rulers,  penetrated  her  most  distant  provinces,  and  traversed 
in  their  apostolic  course  the  whole  extent  of  her  vast  empire, 
from  the  sea  of  China,  across  the  great  wall,  to  the  plains  of 
Tartary  and  Thibet,  and  from  the  gulf  of  Siam  on  the  south  to 
the  shores  of  the  sea  of  Okhost  in  the  north.  It  is  the  history 
of  their  toils  and  sufferings,  of  their  labors  and  triumphs, 
which  we  are  now  to  relate. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  our  purpose  that  we  should  trace  the 
earlier  fortunes  of  Christianity  in  China.  If  St.  Thomas  the 
Apostle,  as  some  have  deemed,  passed  from  India  into  China, 
and  his  message  was  rejected  by  her  people,  the  fact  would 
perhaps  explain  her  subsequent  calamities,  but  this  is  all  the 
instruction  we  could  derive  from  it.  The  question,  upon  which 
history  throws  only  a  faint  light,  does  not  belong  to  our  sub- 
ject. JSTor  do  the  early  Nestorian  missions,  of  which  almost 
every  trace  has  been  obliterated,f — unless  we  find  a  vestige  of 
them,  as  Thevenot  suggests,  in  the  Lamaseries  of  Thibet, — pos- 
sess any  claim  to  our  attention.  It  was  the  misfortune,  per- 
haps a  judicial  one,  of  southern  and  eastern  Asia  to  be  visited 
in  early  ages  by  false  apostles,  deeply  tainted  with  heresy ; 
and  to  this  fact  has  been  attributed  a  large  share  of  the  multi- 
plied disasters  which  have  marked  the  course  of  religion  in 
these  ill-fated  countries.  But  these  are  subjects  altogether 
foreign  to  the  special  inquiry  which  we  are  about  to  pursue.  It 
is  enough  to  know  that  before  our  Saxon  forefathers  were  con- 
verted, Christianity  had  been  preached  in  China.  The  monu- 
mental stone  discovered  in  1625,  near  the  city  of  Si-ngan-fou, 
the  authenticity  of  which,  though  ridiculed  by  Voltaire,  no  one 
now  disputes,  decisively  proves  that  China  was  evangelized  be- 

*  Gutzlaff,  China  Opened,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  180.    Cf.  Humboldt,  Am  Gen- 
trale,  tome  i.,  p.  27. 
f  Henrion,  Hist&ire  des  Missions  Catholiques,  tome  i.,  p.  377. 


62  CHAPTER   II. 

fore  the  seventh  century.*  Even  Gibbon  allows  that  "  the  Chris- 
tianity  of  China  between  the  seventh  and  thirteenth  century  is 
invincibly  proved  by  the  consent  of  Chinese,  Arabian,  Syriac, 
and  Latin  evidence."f  In  the  latter  century,  there  was  already 
an  archbishop  at  Pekin,  who  had  under  his  jurisdiction  four 
suffragan  bishops  ;:f  and  in  the  fourteenth.  Pope  Clement  the 
Fifth  appointed  the  celebrated  Franciscan  John  de  Monte  Cor- 
vino  as  metropolitan, — "a  man,"  as  Neander  observes,  "in 
whom  we  recognize  the  pattern  of  a  true  missionary,  who  spared 
no  pains  in  giving  the  people  the  word  of  God  in  their  own  lan- 
guage.'^ From  this  date  we  may  advance  at  once  to  the  later 
epoch,  with  which  alone  we  are  concerned,  and  every  incident  of 
which  has  been  narrated,  either  by  friends  or  enemies,  with  all 
the  minuteness  and  precision  of  contemporaneous  history. 

In  1552,  St.  Francis-Xavier  left  Goa  for  China,  eager  to 
proclaim  in  that  land  the  Name  which  he  had  already  an- 
nounced to  so  many  thousands  in  other  regions.  But  his 
course  was  run ;  and  the  Master  whom  he  had  loved  and 
served  so  well  summoned  His  apostle  to  rest  from  his  labors. 
He  expired  on  the  shores  of  the  island  of  Sancian,  abandoned 
by  the  treacherous  Chinese  whom  he  had  hired  to  convey  him 
to  Canton. 

Almost  the  very  hour  in  which  St.  Francis  died  saw  the 
birth  of  one  who  was  destined  to  take  his  place,  and  upon 
whom  the  richest  endowments  both  of  nature  and  grace  appear 
to  have  been  lavished.  No  gift  which  might  qualify  him  for 
his  great  career  seems  to  have  been  denied  to  this  eminent 
man.  In  him  were  united  prudence,  constancy,  and  magna- 
nimity of  soul ;  prpfound  genius,  cultivated  by  the  most  famous 
masters  of  the  age ;  delicacy  and  refinement  of  taste,  unwearied 
industry,  and  habitual  mortification.  In  1583,  Father  Kicci 
landed  in  China ;  and  then  began  that  famous  conflict  between 
the  powers  of  light  and  darkness,  in  which  this  intrepid 
apostle  battled  for  twenty-seven  years,  and  which  forms  the 
opening  chapter  in  the  history  of  modern  missions  in  China. 

It  is  that  history  which  we  are  now  to  attempt  to  trace,  and 

of  which  all  the  incidents  may  be  conveniently  arranged  under 

three  principal  epochs.     The  first  extends  from  the  arrival  of 

Kicci  to  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Cang-hi  in  1722  ;  the  second, 

'from  the  accession  of  his  son,  Yong-Tching,  and  the  era  of  per- 


*  Blumhardt,  Histoire  Generate  de  I '  Etdblissement  du  Christianisme,  tome 
iii ,  ch.  xxxi.,  p.  38 ;  Giesler,  Ecdesiast.  Hist.,  vol.  i.,  p.  353 ;  Marco  Polo's 
Travels,  ch.  xv.,  p.  309,  ed.  Wright. 

Decline  and  Fall,  ch.  xlvii. 

Journal  Asiatique,  tome  i.,  p.  135. 

History  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  Church,  vol.  vii.,  p.  76  ;  ed.  Torrey, 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  63 

sedition  which  he  introduced,  to  the  suppression  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  in  1773  ;  the  third,  from  the  revival  of  the  missions  in 
the  first  quarter  of  the  present  century  to  our  own  day.  The 
chief  events  of  these  three  periods  shall  now  be  briefly  sketched, 
with  only  such  an  amount  of  detail  as  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  exhibit  the  facts  which  it  is  proposed  to  illustrate  in  these 
volumes — viz.,  the  character  of  the  missionaries,  the  method  of 
their  operations,  and  the  results  of  their  labors.  As  the 
Catholics  come  first  in  order  of  time,  we  have  no  alternative 
but  to  begin  with  them. 


FIKST  EPOCH. 

Bicci  landed  at  Canton.  Without  money,  and  without 
books,  he  commenced  the  work  for  the  success  of  which  he 
trusted  only,  like  St.  Paul,  to  his  own  vocation,  and  the  grace 
of  God.  Dependent  from  the  first  moment  of  his  arrival  upon« 
the  caprice  of  the  Viceroy,  nothing  could  be  more  precarious 
than  his  position  during  the  earlier  years  of  his  residence  in 
China.  Once  he  was  obliged  to  yield  to  the  fury  of  the  heathen, 
and  retired. to  Macao ;  but  he  was  not  a  man  to  be  daunted  by 
peril  or  discouraged  by  suffering,  and  before  long  he  was  once 
more  in  the  city  from  which  he  had  been  summarily  banished. 
He  had  resolved  to  penetrate  into  the  interior  of  China,  or 
perish  in  the  attempt.* 

On  his  first  landing  he  had  assumed  the  habit  of  a  Bonze, 
supposing,  by  a  natural  error,  that  men  who  exercised  priestly 
functions,  and  professed  an  ascetic  life,  would  be  respected  by 
their  own  followers.  But  when  he  had  ascertained  that  no 
garb  was  le^s  likely  to  attract  the  esteem  of  the  Chinese,  a 
happier  inspiration  led  him  to  adopt  that  of  the  Literates, 
which  the  members  of  his  order  ever  after  retained  during 
their  career  in  China.  His  first  convert  seems  to  have  been  a 
poor  outcast,  whom  he  found  dying  by  the  road-side;  but 
there  was  little  promise  as  yet  of  the  day,  which  only  his 
ardent  faith  and  unfailing  courage  could  have  ventured  to  an- 
ticipate, when  nobles  and  princes  were  to  become  his  disciples, 
and  even  the  supreme  ruler  of  that  wide  empire  was  to  ac- 
knowledge him  as  a  friend,  a  companion,  and  a  guide. 

Meanwhile,  he  had  acquired  such  a  mastery  of  the  purest 
Chinese  dialect,  that  his  compositions  already  began  to  excite 
the  admiration  of  the  most  learned  and  critical  readers,  and  one 
of  them  was  destined  to  fill  the  place  which  it  still  occupies  in 

*   Vie  du  P.  Ricci,  par  le  R.  P.  d'Orleans.    See  also  Vie  du  R.  P.  Ricci, 

Apotre  de  la  Chine,  par  Charles  Sainte-Foi  (Paris,  1859). 


64:  CHAPTER  II. 

the  imperial  library.*  Thus  prepared  for  the  work  to  which 
he  had  devoted  his  life,  he  set  out  on  his  journey  to  Pekin. 
Months,  and  even  years,  were  to  elapse  before  that  journey  was 
completed.  Through  every  obstacle  he  fought  his  way,  always 
prudent  but  never  wavering,  and  scattering  as  he  went  the  seed 
of  the  Gospel.  Many  of  the  more  learned  Chinese,  attracted 
by  an  eloquence  which  they  knew  how  to  admire,  and  captivated 
by  the  sublime  truths  which  he  unfolded  to  them,  embraced  the 
faith ;  but  he  had  set  his  face  towards  Pekin,  and  would  not 
abandon  his  purpose.  Already  he  approached  Nankin,  and 
it  was  now  as  easy  to  go  forwards  as  to  retrace  his  steps.  In 
crossing  the  Yang-tse-Kiang  he  was  nearly  drowned,  but  though 
one  of  his  companions  perished,  his  own  hour  was  not  yet 
come.  When  his  luggage  was  examined  at  the  custom-house, 
a  crucifix  was  found,  which  the  officer  on  duty  considered  "  a 
charm  to  take  away  the  life  of  the  emperor."  This  barrier 
passed,  lie  still  pursued  his  way,  gathering  converts  wherever 
he  stopped,  and  almost  always  of  the  highest  class.  Turned 
back  from  one  city,  he  fled  to  another.  Always  calm  and  col- 
lected, no  difficulty  took  him  by  surprise,  no  snare  tripped  him 
up.  Refused  admission  into  a  town,  he  left  it  on  one  side,  and 

rsed  on  his  way  ;  until  at  length,  overcoming  every  obstacle 
prudence,  sagacity,  and  fortitude,  he  accomplished  a  journey 
unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  modern  enterprise,  and  stood 
within  the  walls  of  the  capital.  And  now,  after  twenty  years 
of  toil  and  suffering,  he  began  to  reap  in  joy  what  he  had  sown 
with  tears. 

"  Few  men  ever  lived,"  says  a  well-known  Protestant  mis- 
sionary, of  whom  we  shall  hear  more  hereafter,  "  who  did  so 
much  within  a  short  space  of  time  as  this  Jesuit."  And  then 
this  unfriendly  witness  adds,  "It  will  scarcely  be  credited  that 
at  his  death  there  existed,  in  Keang-nan  province  alone,  thirty 
churches ;"  and  that  a  little  later,  "  there  were  few  large  cities 
where  some  Christians  might  not  be  found."f  "What  manner 
of  Christians  they  were,  we  shall  learn  immediately. 

Kicci  w^as  now  established  not  only  in  Pekin,  but  within  the 
precincts  of  the  imperial  palace.  His  human  science  he  will- 
ingly employed  in  the  service  of  the  emperor,  reserving  only 
the  rights  of  apostolic  dignity  by  refusing  all  recompense ;  he 
consented  to  be  a  mathematician  and  a  philosopher  at  court,  on 
condition  that  he  should  be  only  a  missionary  everywhere  else. 
In  both  characters  he  was  successful.  Among  the  most  eminent 
of  the  earlier  converts,  attracted  by  his  luminous  teaching  and 

*  Bridgman,  Chinese  GtirestomatJiy,  introd.,  p.  31. 
f  Gutzlaff,  vol.  ii.,  eh.  xv.,  p.  229. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  65 

mortified  life,  was  the  mandarin  Paul  Seu,  one  of  the  highest 
officers  of  the  empire,  whose  whole  family  appear  to  have  em- 
braced the  faith  which  their  descendants  still  profess  at  the 
present  day.  Du  Halde  relates  of  his  grand-daughter  Candida, 
that,  "  during  thirty-four  years  of  widowhood  she  imitated 
perfectly  those  holy  widows  whose  character  St.  Paul  has  de- 
scribed to  us,  founded  thirty  churches  in  her  own  part  of  the 
country,  and  caused  nineteen  to  be  built  in  different  provinces 
of  the  empire."*  And  the  grace  which  she  used  so  well  has 
abided  from  that  hour  in  her  house  and  lineage,  so  that  a  re- 
luctant witness  reports,  in  1858,  that  "part  of  the  descendants 
of  Seu  are  now  Romanists,  "f  Three  centuries  of  unrelenting 
persecution  have  failed  so  completely  to  uproot  the  churches 
founded  by  Ricci,  that  the  same  writer  is  obliged  to  confess, 
with  unfeigned  displeasure,  that  in  the  single  province  first 
evangelized  by  him,  the  Catholics  at  this  hour  "number  about 
seventy  thousand  souls.'9  It  is  well  to  commence  our  history 
with  a  fact  attested  by  eager  adversaries,  which  illustrates  so 
impressively,  not  merely  the  success  of  the  first  generation  of 
missionaries,  but  the  almost  unexampled  solidity  and  perma- 
nence of  its  results. 

But  it  was  not  only  the  nobles  and  statesmen  of  China  who 
consented  to  become  the  disciples  of  Eicci,  and  to  learn  wisdom 
from  the  lips  of  the  stranger.  St.  Paul  had  gathered  neophytes 
even  in  the  palace  of  the  Roman  emperor,  and  Ricci  adminis- 
tered the  sacrament  of  baptism  in  that  of  the  sovereign  of  China. 
In  1605,  three  princes  of  the  imperial  family  were  added  to  the 
company  of  the  faithful  on  the  feast  of  the  Epiphany,  and  re- 
ceived the  names  of  Melchior,  Gaspard,  and  Balthasar.  How 
they,  and  other  princes  of  their  race,  adorned  their  profession 
when  the  hour  of  trial  arrived,  we  shall  hear  presently  from 
competent  witnesses. 

That  such  a  missionary  as  Ricci  should  have  foreseen  the 
inevitable  day  of  suffering,  and  endeavored  to  prepare  his 
spiritual  children  to  meet  it  with  fortitude,  can  hardly  surprise 
us.  He  knew,  while  he  was  baptizing  princes  and  nobles  in 
Pekin,that  persecution  had  already  commenced  in  the  provinces. 
It  was  only  the  true  soldier  of  the  cross  who  would  be  able  to 
prevail  in  that  terrible  warfare  of  which  China  was  soon  to  be 
the  theatre.  None,  therefore,  were  admitted  into  the  Church, 
but  with  excessive  precaution,  and  after  making  "  a  public  dec- 
laration of  their  faith,  composed  by  themselves^ 'J  "  The  man- 
darins venture  all,"  says  Le  Comte,  uas  soon  as  they  think  of 

*  Du  Halde,  tome  iii.,  p.  79  et  seq. 

f  Life,  in  China,  by  Key.  W..  C.  Milne,  cli.  iv.,  p.  474  (1858). 

I  Du  Halde  and  Henrion. 


OO  CHAPTER   IT. 

becoming  Christians,"*  and  both  they  and  their  teachers  knew 
it.  Their  position  resembled,  in  every  point,  that  of  the  prim- 
itive converts  ;  and  we  shall  see  that,  from  one  end  of  the  em- 
pire to  the  other,  they  resembled  them  in  the  inflexibility  of 
their  faith,  and  in  their  contempt  of  suffering  and  death. 

The  first  apostle  of  China  had  done  the  work  committed  to 
him.  "  He  had  only  spent  twenty-seven  years  in  China,"  says 
Mr.  Gutzlaff,  "  and  during  that  time  he  had  executed  an  her- 
culean task.  He  was  the  first  Catholic  missionary  who  pene- 
trated into  the  empire,  and  when  he  died,  there  were  more  than 
three  hundred  churches  in  the  different  provinces.""^  It  is  true 
that  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  whose  own  operations  will  be  described  to  us 
by  his  associates, — from  whom  we  shall  learn  that  he  was  more 
successful  in  amassing  wealth  than  in  making  Christians, — 
adds,  disdainfully,  "  they  converted  thousands  without  touch- 
ing the  heart."  The  dungeons  and  scaffolds  of  China  will  tell 
us  whether  Mr.  Gutzlaff  was  right. 

A  few  days  before  Ricci  died,  he  addressed  his  sorrowing 
companions  in  these  words :  "  My  fathers,  when  I  reflect  by 
what  means  I  may  most  efficaciously  propagate  the  Christian 
faith  among  the  Chinese,  I  find  none  better  nor  more  persua- 
sive than  my  death."  And,  in  truth,  as  a  modern  writer  ob- 
serves, "  by  his  public  interment,  with  the  emperor's  official 
sanction,  he  legalized  Christianity  in  China.";): 

It  was  in  1610  that  Ricci  terminated  his  apostolic  career,  and 
now  the  events  were  at  hand  which  were  to  try  his  work.  Only 
five  years  after  his  death,  so  fierce  a  storm  broke  out  that  even 
the  Fathers  at  Pekin,  hitherto  respected  by  the  persecutor,  were 
banished  to  Macao,  and  for  a  time  the  further  progress  of  the 
faith  seemed  to  be  effectually  stopped.  But  it  had  been  decreed 
that  there  should  never  be  wanting  apostles  to  continue  the 
work  which  Ricci  had  begun,  and,  in  1628,  Adam  Schaal  was 
installed  as  his  successor,  with  the  title  of  "  President  of  the 
Mathematical  Tribunal,"  the  emperor  finding  his  own  subjects 
utterly  incompetent  to  fill  the  place  of  Ricci  and  his  compan- 
ions. Religion  once  more  found  an  entrance  into  the  capital, 
under  the  protection  of  philosophy  and  science. 

Of  all  the  objections  urged  by  the  infidels  of  the  eighteenth 
century  against  revealed  religion,  few  were  more  specious,  none 
more  delusive,  than  that  which  was  founded  upon  the  supposed 
antiquity  of  Chinese  science.  Protestant  writers  of  our  own  age 
have  sufficiently  exposed  the  transparent  impostures  of  Yoltaire 
and  his  school.  "  In  order  to  destroy  the  credibility  of  the 

*  The  Present  State  of  China,  Letter  xii.,  p.  411  (1737). 
f  History  of  China,  vol.  ii.,  p.  121. 
i  Hue,  tome  ii.,  p.  249. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  67 

Noachian  Deluge,"  says  Mr.  Hugh  Miller,  this  unbelieving  im- 
postor "  exhausted  every  expedient  in  his  attempts  to  neutralize 
that  Palseontologic  evidence  on  which  geologists  now  found  some 
of  their  most  legitimate  conclusions.  But  he  only  succeeded, 
instead,  in  producing  compositions  of  which  every  sentence 
contains  either  an  absurdity  or  an  untruth."*  "  It  has  been 
proved,"  says  Mr.  Montgomery  Martin,  "that  the  early  astro- 
nomical observations  of  the  Chinese  were  absolute  forgeries,  as 
the  Jesuits  found  no  one  able  to  calculate  an  eclipse. "f  "Their 
acquaintance  with  the  exact  sciences,"  observes  Mr.  Hugh 
Murray,  "  cannot  for  a  moment  bear  comparison  with  that  of 
Europeans.";):  u  Whatever  is  valuable  in  Chinese  astronomical 
science,"  adds  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  "  has  been  borrowed  from  the 
treatises  of  Roman  Catholic  missionaries."§  The  accuracy  of 
their  observations,  fixing  the  position  of  innumerable  places 
throughout  the  Chinese  empire,  and  ranging  through  33  deg.  of 
latitude  and  23  deg.  of  longitude,  is  attested  by  Sir  John  Davis ;  || 
while  Mr.  Thornton  declares  that  Chinese  chronology ,  rightly  ex- 
amined, rather  confirms  than  contradicts  the  Mosaic  account.^ 
How  eagerly  successive  emperors  of  China  acknowledged  the 
rare  qualifications  of  the  Jesuits,  and  profited  by  their  learning, 
is  attested  by  all  the  authorities.  It  was  the  science  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, as  Krusenstern  remarks,  and  the  fascination  of  their 
personal  character,  which  secured  their  welcome  at  court ; 
though  he  perhaps  exaggerates  when  he  adds,  that  "  the  fond- 
ness for  literature  which  has  actuated  some  of  the  emperors  is 
the  only  reason  of  their  being  tolerated."**  It  is  true,  how- 
ever, as  Astley  notices,  that  in  spite  of  the  friendship  and  es- 
teem of  various  emperors,  "  their  religion  being  but  barely 
tolerated,  were  always  in  danger  of  persecution. "ff  It  is  de- 

*  The  Testimony  of  the  Rocks,  by  Hugh  Miller,  Lecture  viii.,  p.  279  (1862). 

f  China,  Political,  Commercial,  and  Social,  vol.  i.,  p.  78. 

\.  Historical  and  Descriptive  Account  of  China,  cli.  iii.,  p.  225 

I  China  Opened,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  xiv.,  p.  169. 

f  Sketches  of  China,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  264. 

*|[  History  of  China,  by  Thomas  Thornton,  Esq.,  preface,  p.  13.     "  The  geo- 
graphical labors  performed  in  China  by  the  Jesuits  and  other  missionaries  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  faith  will  ever  command  the  gratitude  and  excite  the  won- 
der of  all  geographers.    .    .    .    Portable  chronometers  and  aneroid  barometers, 
sextants  and  theodolites,  sympiesometers  and  micrometers,  compasses  and  arti 
ficial  horizons,  are,  notwithstanding  all  possible  care,  frequently  found  to  fail 
and  yet  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  a  few  wandering  European  priests  trav 
ersed  the  enormous  State  of  China  Proper,  and  laid  down  on  their  maps  the  posi 
tions  of  cities,  the  direction  of  rivers,  and  the  height  of  mountains, with  a  correct- 
ness of  detail  and  a  general  accuracy  of  outline  that  are  absolutely  marvellous.  To 
this  day  all  our  maps  are  based  upon  their  observations."     The  Taeping  Rebel- 
lion in  China,  by  Commander  Lindesay  Brine,  R.N.,  F.R.G.S.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  39  (1862). 

**  Voyage  Round  the  World,  vol.  ii",  p.  319. 

ff  Voyages  and  Travels,  vol.  iv.,  p.  233. 


68  CHAPTER   II. 

monstrated,  says  M.  Pauthier,  who  has  done  much  to  elucidate 
the  history  of  China,  "  that  the  toleration  extended  to  the  mis- 
sionaries was  only  due  to  the  intercession  of  those  who  were  in 
favor  at  court."*  Hence,  the  apparent  contradiction  of  the 
Chinese,  at  different  times  and  places,  and  the  singular  con- 
trast between  the  honors  lavished  upon  the  missionaries  in  one 
city,  and  the  torments  inflicted  upon  their  colleagues  in  another. 
Adam  Schaal,  to  whom  we  must  return,  was  now  the  chief 
representative  of  Christianity  and  science  in  the  capital  of 
China.  But  he  was  not  alone.  In  1631,  the  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans  began  to  arrive,  and  in  spite  of  the  perils  which 
surrounded  them  on  every  side,  the  apostolic  husbandmen  spread 
themselves  over  the  land  in  every  direction, from  Canton  to  the 
great  wall  of  China,  and  even  into  Tartary  and  Mongolia.  Nor 
was  their  labor  vain.  "The  harvest  became  so  plentiful,"  says 
one  who  had  watched  its  after-growth,  "  that  the  workmen  were 
too  few  to  gather  it  in."f  "  The  progress  of  the  missionaries," 
observes  an  English  writer,  "  was  in  general  triumphant, 
though  interrupted  by  fearful  vicissitudes;  till,  towards  the  end 
of  the  Ming  dynasty,  they  were  almost  supreme  in  the  palace."^: 
"  Few  missions  in  pagan  countries,"  says  a  Protestant  agent  in 
China,  "  have  been  more  favored  with  zealous  converts,  or 
their  missionaries  more  aided  and  countenanced  by  rich  and 
noble  supporters,  than  the  early  papal  missions  in  China."§  He 
had  reason  to  say  it,  for  it  was  at  this  time  that  the  mother  of 
the  emperor,  his  principal  wife,  and  tinally  his  eldest  son,  were 
baptized  by  Father  Koffler,  and  shortly  after  dispatched  to 
Rome,  to  Pope  Alexander  VII.,  the  celebrated  letter  which  has 
been  so  often  quoted,  and  upon  which  such  great  hopes  were 
founded.  But  if  the  emperor  permitted  his  nearest  relatives 
to  profess  the  Christian  faith,  and  even  distinguished  by  special 
favors  the  missionaries  who  did  not  fear  thus  to  exercise  their 
ministry  under  his  own  eyes,  it  was  mainly  to  their  personal 
qualities  that  the  capricious  toleration  was  due.  "  The  man- 
darins," said  their  sovereign,  "  ask  me  daily  for  new  favors  ; 
but  Ma  fa" — this  was  the  name  which  he  had  given  to  Schaal, 
who  had  just  completed  the  reform  of  the  calendar — "  though 
he  knows  that  I  love  him,  always  refuses  even  those  which  I 
press  him  to  accept."  And  when  the  fearless  missionary  acted 
the  part  of  St.  John  the  Baptist,  and  rebuked  the  monarch's 
vices,  the  latter  only  replied,  "  I  pardon  your  invectives,  be- 
cause I  am  convinced  that  you  love  me." 

*  La  Chine,  p.  442. 

f  Le  Comte,  Letter  xi.,  p.  364. 

\  The  British  World  in  the  East ;  by  Leigtch  Ritchie,  vol.  ii.,  p.  229. 

§  The  Middle,  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  xix.,  p.  305. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  69 

A  characteristic  anecdote  will  illustrate  the  relations  between 
the  emperor  and  this  celebrated  missionary ;  who,  after  being 
the  friend  and  companion  of  the  last  sovereign  of  the  Ming 
dynasty,  continued  to  receive  the  same  marks  of  esteem  from 
the  two  first  Tartar  emperors,  although  the  Tartar  invasion 
had  been  successfully  resisted  in  the  south  by  Christian  Chinese 
generals.*  It  is  a  custom  in  China  that  when  the  emperor  has 
occupied  any  chair  or  seat  in  the  house  of  one  of  his  subjects,  it 
is  immediately  covered  with  yellow  stuff,  the  imperial  color, 
and  none  may  henceforth  sit  upon  it.  One  day  when  Chun- 
tche,  the  second  of  the  Mantcheou  dynasty,  paid  a  visit  to 
Father  Schaal,  as  he  sat  down  sometimes  on  the  bed,  sometimes 
elsewhere,  wherever  he  found  a  seat,  the  Father  said  to  him, 
laughing,  "  But  where  does  your  majesty  intend  me  to  sit 
hereafter?"  "  Wherever  you  like,"  replied  the  monarch ;  "  you 
and  I  are  not  on  terms  of  ceremony  ."y 

On  the  death  of  this  emperor,  a  formidable  persecution  arose, 
during  the  minority  of  his  successor,  Cang-hi ;  for  though,  as 
the  Pere  d'Orleans  relates,  "  the  four  regents  even  conferred 
the  title  of  preceptor  to  the  young  emperor  on  Father  Adam,  a 
cabal  of  Bonzes  and  Mahometans  excited  such  a  tempest  against 
Christianity  as  to  result  in  an  attempt  at  its  extermination. "J 
The  venerable  Adam  Schaal,  at  the  age  of  seventy-four,  was 
loaded  with  chains  and  cast  into  prison,  together  with  a  crowd 
of  converted  mandarins,  of  whom  five  were  martyred.  Schaal 
was  sentenced  to  be  strangled  and  chopped  in  pieces  ;  but  it  is 
related,  that  whenever  the  judges  assembled  to  read  the  decree, 
they  were  forced  by  earthquakes  to  fly  from  the  tribunal,  and 
that  the  people,  interpreting  the  portent  as  a  warning  from 
Heaven,  obtained  a  reversal  of  the  judgment.  "The  whole 
land,"  says  Le  Comte,  "was  confounded  at  this  prodigy." 
But  Schaal,  exhausted  by  infirmity  and  the  sufferings  which  he 
had  no  longer  strength  to  endure,  sank  under  the  outrages 
which  he  had  received,  and  died  in  1666.  "  Fallen  from 
fame,"  says  the  Pere  d'Orleans,  "deprived  of  his  dignities, 
loaded  with  reproach  and  calumny,  he  endured  imprisonment 
and  fetters,  showing  by  his  constancy  that  he  considered  himself 
even  more  happy  to  confess  the  name  of  Christ  in  a  dungeon 
than  to  have  preached  it  with  honor  in  a  palace." 

Schaal  was  now  removed,  and  peremptory  orders  being  issued 
by  the  provisional  governors,  the  flames  of  persecution  were 
rekindled  throughout  the  whole  empire.  Twenty-five  mis- 
sionaries, of  whom  twenty-one  were  Jesuits,  were  seized,  and 

*  History  of  the  Tartar  Conquerors  of  China,  introd.,  p.  6 ;  ed.  Hakluyt  Society. 

|  Henrion,  tome  ii.,  p.  376. 

;  History  of  the  Tartar  Conquerors,  &c.,  Book  i.,  p.  45. 


70  CHAPTER   II. 

deported  from  the  interior  to  Canton.  Here  they  waited  till 
the  storm  should  lull ;  nor  was  it  long  before  their  patience  was 
rewarded,  and  they  were  once  more  in  the  midst  of  their  flocks. 
In  1671,  Father  Ferdinand  Yerbiest,  the  successor  of  Adam 
Schaal,  obtained  once  again  from  the  new  emperor,  over  whom 
he  had  acquired  supreme  influence,  a  respite  for  his  brethren  ; 
and  in  that  single  year,  as  a  candid  Protestant  writer  notices, 
more  than  twenty  thousand  Chinese  were  converted.*  Perse- 
cution had  borne  its  usual  fruits,  and  the  example  of  the  con- 
fessors, according  to  the  law  of  Christian  missions,  had  won  the 
admiration  of  the  pagans  for  the  faith  which  could  inspire  so 
much  courage,  and  fortitude.  In  1672,  an  uncle  of  the  em- 
peror, besides  many  other  persons  of  the  highest  rank,  including 
one  of  the  eight  perpetual  generals  who  commanded  the  Tartar 
forces,  embraced  Christianity ;  and  the  missionaries  had  good 
reason  to  believe  that,  after  a  few  more  trials  and  vicissitudes, 
the  Cross  would  triumph  in  China. 

Yerbiest  was  no  unworthy  successor  of  Ricci  and  Schaal. 
"  Reckon  me,  O  Lord,"  he  was  accustomed  to  say,  according 
to  the  testimony  of  his  companions,  "  among  those  who  have 
desired,  but  were  not  permitted,  to  shed  their  blood  for  Thee. 
Under  the  veil  of  Thine  infinite  mercy,  I  dare  offer  my  life  as  a 
sacrifice  to  Thee."  In  such  a  temper  he  labored  during 
nearly  twenty  years,  enjoying  the  confidence  and  esteem  of 
Cang-hi,  who  was  not  only  captivated  by  his  science  and 
learning,  but  deeply  affected  by  the  display  of  apostolic  virtues 
which  he  had  carefully  tested,  by  means  worthy  of  an  Asiatic 
monarch.  That  men  of  the  stamp  of  Yerbiest,  and  his  com- 
panions Grimaldi  arid  Pereira,  versed  in  all  the  mysteries  of 
human  science,  should  constantly  reject  the  dignities  and 
emoluments  offered  to  them,  and  deliberately  prefer  to  spend 
life  in  an  unbroken  course  of  prayer,  fasting,  and  continence, 
appeared  to  the  Tartar  prince  a  fact  which  deserved  investiga- 
tion :  and  by  his  orders  spies  were  secretly  appointed  to  watch 
the  missionaries  in  their  private  hours,  who  were  able  to 
describe,  to  the  astonishment  of  their  royal  master,  the  holy 
and  mortified  lives  of  Yerbiest  and  his  brethren.  The  effect  of 
this  discovery  upon  the  all-powerful  sovereign  of  China  was 
full  of  auspicious  fruits  for  the  missions  ;  so  that  when,  in  1685, 
a  fresh  company  of  missionaries  arrived  at  Ningpo,  whose 
entrance  was  violently  opposed  by  the  heathen  mandarins, 
Cang-hi,  who  had  learned  to  appreciate  them,  wrote  thus  with 
his  own  hand  to  his  too  zealous  subordinates :  "  It  is  not  men 
of  their  character  who  should  be  driven  from  my  empire.  Let 

*  MecHiurst,  China,  its  State  and  Prospects,  ch.  ix.,  p.  232. 


MISSIONS   IN    CHINA.  71 

them  all  come  to  my  court ;  such  as  know  mathematics  shall 
stay  near  my  person,  the  rest  may  gd  into  the  provinces  wher- 
ever they  please." 

Three  years  later,  in  1688,  Yerbiest  died,  and  it  seemed  a 
bright  and  cheering  prospect  upon  which  the  missionary  closed 
his  eyes.  Everywhere  religion  was  extending  its  peaceful 
sway  ;  and  already,  in  spite  of  repeated  persecutions,  the  Chris- 
tian churches  of  China  might  be  counted  by  hundreds.  It  was 
the  emperor  himself  who  pronounced  the  eulogy  of  the  great 
missionary  who  had  now  departed,  and  even  published  a  solemn 
edict,  "as  a  public  testimony  of  affection  towards  him,"  in 
which  he  made  the  characteristic  remark,  that  anot  one  of  his 
calculations  as  to  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies  had 
ever  been  wrong."  It  is  of  Verbiest  that  Mr.  Medhurst,  with 
the  candor  which  distinguishes  his  writings,  and  which  made 
him  an  estimable  man,  though  it  could  not  make  him  a  success- 
ful missionary,  gives  the  following  account  :— 

"  His  character  for  humility  and  modesty  was  only  equalled 
by  his  well-known  application  and  industry.  He  seemed 
insensible  to  every  thing  but  the  promotion  of  science  and 
religion;  he  abstained  from  idle  visits,  the  reading  of  curious 
books,  and  even  the  perusal  of  European  newspapers ;  while  he 
incessantly  employed  himself  either  in  mathematical  calcu- 
lations, in  instructing  proselytes,  in  corresponding  with  the 
grandees  of  the  empire  in  the  interests  of  the  mission,  or  in 
writing  to  the  learned  of  Europe,  inviting  them  to  repair  to 
China.  His  private  papers  are  indicative  of  the  depth  of  his 
devotion,  the  rigor  of  his  austerities,  his  watchfulness  over 
his  heart  amid  the  crowd  of  business,  and  the  ardor  with 
which  he  served  religion.  "* 

But  Yerbiest,  wise  and  good  as  he  was,  cannot  be  distin- 
guished from  thousands  of  apostles  whom  the  Church,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  course  of  these  pages,  has  sent  forth  into  all 
lands  during  the  last  three  centuries.  Within  a  few  weeks  of 
his  death,  Fathers  Gerbillon  and  Bouvet  were  received  at  court, 
and  occupied  in  the  esteem  of  the  imperial  philosopher  the 
same  place  which  had  been  held  successively  by  Schaal  and 
Yerbiest.  It  was  Cang-hi  who  obliged  them  to  learn  the 
Tartar  dialect,  which  he  preferred  to  speak,  and  constantly 
examined  them  himself  to  ascertain  the  progress  which  they 
were  making  in  his  favorite  language,  into  which,  as  Chateau- 
briand notices,  one  of  them  subsequently  translated  the  scientific 
treatises  of  Fontenelle.  In  all  his  journeys  he  carried  with  him 
one  or  more  of  the  missionaries,  from  whose  society  he  seems 

*  Ch.  ix.,  p.  234. 


72  CHAPTER   II. 

rarely  to  have  separated . himself,  and  with  whom  he  lived  on 
such  terms  of  unwonted  intimacy  as  excited  the  envy  and 
astonishment  of  the  greatest  officers  of  the  empire.  His  first 
question  on  arriving  at  any  town  had  always  reference  to  the 
missionary  who  dwelt  in  it.  At  Nankin  where  Father  Gabiani 
and  his  companions  refrained,  out  of  humility,  from  presenting 
themselves  before  him,  "the  emperor  waited  for  them  two  days, 
till  at  length  becoming  impatient  at  their  absence,  he  sent  to 
them  a  mandarin  of  his  household  named  Chao,  a  zealous 
friend  of  the  fathers  of  Pekin,  to  reproach  them  with  not 
having  corne  to  see  him  ;"  and  after  presenting  them  with  gifts, 
and  asking  them  "  if  they  had  not  some  image  of  Jesus  Christ 
about  them,"  he  informed  them,  that,  as  a  special  mark  of 
favor,  "  on  his  return  he  would  pass  before  the  door  of  their 
house."* 

In  1 Y02,  four  years  after  the  death  of  Yerbiest,  a  noble  church, 
built  within  the  precincts  of  the  palace,  was  solemnly  opened, 
the  first  Mass  being  celebrated  by  Father  Gerbillon.  When 
the  envious  mandarins  remonstrated  with  Cang-hi  about  the 
dimensions  of  this  church,  whicli  overshadowed  a  portion  of 
the  imperial  edifice,  he  answered,  "What  would  you  have  me 
do  ?  These  foreigners  render  me  every  day  important  services, 
for  which  I  know  not  how  to  recompense  them  ;  they  refuse  all 
offices  and  employments ;  money  they  will  not  touch ;  religion 
is  the  only  thing  they  care  for,  and  it  is  in  this  alone  that  1  can 
give  them  any  gratification.  Speak  to  me  no  more  about  it."f 

Many  other  illustrations  might  be  added  of  the  influence 
exerted  by  the  missionaries  in  this  pagan  court,  and  its  effects 
upon  the  progress  of  religion  in  China.  It  was  natural  that 
the  extraordinary  favors  manifested  by  successive  emperors 
towards,  the  missionaries  should  deeply  impress  all  who 
witnessed  them.  Father  Yerbiest  relates  that  in  1682  he 
accompanied  the  reigning  sovereign  to  Eastern  Tartary,  and 
that  he  was  placed  under  the  special  care  of  the  uncle  and 
father-in-law  of  the  emperor  during  the  whole  expedition. 
Ten  horses  from  the  imperial  stables  were  set  apart  for  his  use, 
and  while  "all  the  other  mandarins  were  obliged  to  spend 
great  sums  from  their  own  resources,"  the  expenses  of  the 
missionary  were  defrayed  by  the  emperor.  If  any  difficulty 
occurs  during  the  journey,  such  as  the  passage  of  a  swollen 
torrent,  the  first  care  of  the  emperor,  though  accompanied  by 
his  son  and  heir,  is  for  the  safety  of  Father  Yerbiest.  "  Where 
is  he?"  was  his  anxious  inquiry  on  one  occasion,  when  night 
had  overtaken  them  at  a  dangerous  ford ;  and  he  insisted  upon 

*  D'Orleans,  History  of  the  Tartar  Conquerors,  &c.,  p.  98. 
f  Lettres  Edifiantes  et  Curieuses,  tome  xvii.,  p.  87. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  73 

his  entering  into  his  own  boat,  having  himself  crossed  the 
stream  a  second  time  to  search  for  him  ;  an  act,  as  Father 
Verbiest  observes,  which  "  caused  no  little  comment  among  the 
multitude  of  eminent  persons,  who,  through  the  night  and 
following  day,  were  toiling  to  effect  their  passage."* 

Father  Pereira,  who  received  in  his  turn  similar  honors, 
and  who  negotiated,  together  with  Gerbillon,  the  Russian 
treaty  of  Nerchinsk  in  1689,f  relates,  that  he  would  sometimes 
say  in  joke  to  his  courtiers,  "Take  heed  of  controversy  with 
the  Christian  teachers,  for  their  knowledge  compels  you  to 
agree  with  them  on  every  subject,  and,  what  is  more,  they 
worship  in  my  presence,  when  occasion  offers,  the  highest 
God."  He  adds,  that  "  many  of  the  courtiers,  who  used 
formerly  to  address  their  prayers  to  Heaven,  are  now  ashamed 
to  use  that  name,  and  only  pray  to  the  personal  God."J  But 
we  have  now  sufficient  evidence  on  this  point,  and  it  is  time 
to  enter  without  further  details  upon  the  second  period  of  our 
history. 

Thus  far,  amid  partial  reverses,  and  trials  which  only  purified 
the  faith  of  the  converts,  the  missionaries  had  triumphed. 
From  one  extremity  of  the  country  to  the  other,  the  Name  of 
Jesus  and  the  constancy  of  His  worshippers  had  become  known. 
The  new  Christians  were  now  sufficiently  fortified  in  the  love 
of  God,  and  the  practices  of  religion,  to  bear  the  sharp  trial 
through  which,  sooner  or  later,  every  newly  founded  church 
must  pass.  One  hand  alone  restrained  the  storm,  and  that 
hand  was  about  to  lose  its  strength.  In  1722,  the  emperor 
Cang-hi  died,  at  the  age  of  sixty-nine,  full  of  love  and  admira- 
tion of  the  missionaries,  but  too  much  enslaved  by  earthly 
passions  to  embrace  their  doctrine.  He  had  served  them,  rather 
than  himself ;  and  having  lost  the  opportunity  so  freely  gffered 
to  him,  and  neglected  the  grace  accepted  by  so  many  of  his 
kinsfolk,  was  now  to  be  taken  away.  His  son  and  successor, 
Yong-Tching,  whose  vanity  is  said  to  have  been  wounded  by 
the  calm  superiority  of  his  Christian  relatives,  and  their  steadfast 
rejection  of  the  ancient  superstitions,  immediately  issued  a 
decree  of  extermination  against  the  religion  of  Jesus,  and  in 
that  year  of  evil  omen  "  all  the  missionaries  without  distinction 
were  driven  from  their  churches ;  more  than  three  hundred 
churches  were  either  destroyed  or  converted  to  profane  uses;, 
and  more  than  three  hundred  thousand  Christians  were  aban- 
doned to  the  fury  of  the  heathen. "§ 

*  D'Orleans,  Appendix,  p.  114. 

f  Ravenstcin,  The  Russians  on  the  Amur,  p.  58. 

1  D'Orleans,  p.  143. 

§  Du  Halde. 


74  CHAPTER   II. 


SECOND   EPOCH. 

The  second  epoch  of  Christianity  in  China  had  now  com- 
menced. From  the  hour  in  which  Yong-Tching  ascended  the 
throne  to  the  present  time,  it  was  only  by  the  loss  of  all  earthly 
goods,  and  often  at  the  cost  of  life  itself,  that  a  Chinese  could 
embrace  the  religion  of  the  Cross.  Our  Christian  forefathers  of 
the  first  three  centuries  had  endured  the  same  trial ;  and  men 
have  justly  deemed  it  a  conclusive  proof  of  the  divinity  of  their 
religion,  that  it  could  survive  the  persecutions  which'  would 
have  annihilated  any  system  or  policy  of  human  invention.  The 
Church  in  China  has  displayed  exactly  the  same  proof  of  its 
divine-  origin.  One  hundred  and  forty  years  have  passed  away 
since  Yong-Tching  issued  his  decree,  and  there  are  more  than 
three  times  as  many  Christians  in  China  at  this  moment  as 
when  he  resolved  to  purge  the  empire  of  their  presence.  Princes 
and  nobles,  soldiers  and  peasants,  women  and  children,  have 
passed  in  turn  through  the  fiery  furnace,  but  each  class  has 
triumphed,  even  in  death.  The  work  of  Eicci  and  his  succes- 
sors was  now  to  encounter  the  formidable  test  which  they  had 
foreseen,  and  of  which  we  are  about  to  witness  the  applica- 
tion. If  their  disciples  fall  away  when  the  storm  bursts  upon 
them,  it  will  prove  that  they  had  built  on  no  solid  founda- 
tion ;  if  they  endure,  like  the  primitive  Christians,  every  tor- 
ment which  the  malice  of  men  or  demons  could  invent,  and 
glorify  at  the  stake  or  on  the  scaffold  the  Saviour  for  whom 
they  shed  their  blood,  we  shall  confess  that  His  grace  was 
upon  them,  lifting  them  above  nature,  and  subduing  the  flesh  to 
the  spirit. 

Amjong  the  earliest  victims  of  the  terrible  persecution  which 
now  raged  from  one  end  of  China  to  the  other,  and  in  which 
mandarins  of  all  ranks  vied  with  each  other  in  executing  the 
sanguinary  edicts  of  their  master,  were  several  of  the  emperor's 
nearest  relatives.  These  members  of  the  royal  house  had  been 
nurtured  in  all  the  pride  and  pomp  of  the  Chinese  court ;  one 
of  them  had  even  been  named  as  a  probable  successor  to  the 
throne ;  the  greatest  officers  of  state  had  been  wont  to  approach 
them  only  on  their  knees.  They  were  now  summoned,  not  to 
disavow  their  convictions,  but  only  to  pay  external  homage  to 
the  state  religion.  It  was  the  same  easy  compromise  which  had 
so  often  been  proposed  to  the  primitive  converts,  and  which 
those  true  soldiers  of  Christ  had  calmly  rejected.  The  Chinese 
princes  were  Christians  of  the  same  class,  and  had  been  formed 
by  apostles  of  the  same  school.  The  Divine  admonition  had 
Bunk  deep  into  their  hearts  which  said,  "You  cannot  drink  the 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  75 

chalice  of  the  Lord,  and  the  chalice  of  devils."*  With  one 
consent,  therefore,  they  refused  to  touch  the  unclean  thing;  and 
the  whole  family,  including  several  brothers  of  the  emperor, 
were  degraded  and  exiled.  Let  us  follow  them  to  the  scene  of 
their  long  trial,  in  which  they  displayed,  during  many  years, 
such  patient  resignation,  that  by  the  contemplation  of  their 
unmoved  fortitude,  amidst  poverty,  famine,  and  disease,  several 
heathen  members  of  the  imperial  family,  undaunted  by  the 
prospect  of  a  similar  lot,  embraced  the  law  of  Christ. 

Prince  John,  the  third  in  age  of  this  company  of  royal  con- 
fessors, wrote  thus  from  his  place  of  exile  in  Tartary  to  his 
friend  and  director,  Father  Parennin  :  "  What  we  now  desire, 
and  what  you  must  beg  of  God  for  us,  is,  that  by  the  help  of 
His  grace  we  may  correct  our  faults,  practise  virtue,  conform 
ourselves  to  His  holy  will,  and  persevere  to  the  end  in  His  holy 
service.  This  is  the  only  object  of  our  desires;  the  rest  we 
count  for  nothing."  The  same  quiet  and  sober,  but  invincible 
courage,  which  we  shall  find  to  be  a  characteristic  of  the  Chi- 
nese martyrs  and  confessors,  was  displayed  by  all  his  com- 
panions, and  always  with  the  simple  dignity  of  language  which 
befitted  the  occasion.  From  first  to  last,  they  are  calm  and 
collected,  as  if  they  remembered  whose  honor  was  intrusted  to 
them,  and  knew  how  to  be  heroes  without  clamor  or  exaggera- 
tion. 

"  You  know  not,"  said  another  of  the  princes,  whose  servant 
wept  on  seeing  him  loaded  with  heavy  chains,  "  the  precious- 
ness  of  sufferings,  and  yet  you  are  a  Christian !  Learn  that  they 
are  the  pledge  of  a  blessed  eternity.  Do  not,  then,  be  discour- 
aged ;  but  whatever  it  may  cost  you,  continue  steadfast  in  the 
faith,  and  never  abandon  the  service  of  God."  We  almost  seem 
to  hear  the  solemn  voice  of  the  great  Apostle :  "  Think  not 
strange  the  burning  heat  which  is  to  try  you,  as  if  some  new 
thing  happened  to  you :  but  if  you  partake  of  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,  rejoice  that  when  His  glory  shall  be  revealed,  you  also 
may  be  glad  with  exceeding  joy. "f 

The  same  prince,  when  another  servant  offered  to  cover  with 
linen  the  places  bruised  by  the  chains,  which  are  said  to  have 
weighed  seventy  pounds,  repulsed  trim  with  these  words  :  "Did 
you  ever  hear  that  in  the  night  of  His  Passion  our  Lord 
endeavored  to  loose  the  cords  with  which  He  was  bound,  or 
that  He  placed  bandages  under  them  to  relieve  the  smart? 
This  Avas  the  God-Man ;  and  yet  He  suffered  for  us  sinners, 
while  we  do  not  suffer  for  others,  but  for  ourselves."^: 

*  1  Cor.  x.  21. 

f  1  Pet.  iv.  12,  13. 

$  Lettres  EdificmUs,  tome  xx.,  p.  54. 


76  CHAPTER   II. 

The  ladies  of  the  imperial  family  displayed  equal  patience 
and  generosity  in  the  midst  of  want  and  sufferings  of  every 
kind,  aggravated  by  the  memory  of  a  former  life  of  ease  and 
luxury.  "  These  illustrious  persons,"  says  a  Protestant  his- 
torian, "were  sent  as  exiles  into  a  desolate  part  of  Tartary ; 
the  princesses  were  exposed  to  the  hazard  of  perishing  with 
cold  and  hunger.  Yet  in  1736  we  find  the  members  of  the 
imperial  family  still  adhering  to  the  Christian  religion."* 
Fourteen  years  of  persecution,  sometimes  violent  and  cruel, 
at  others  subtle  and  insidious,  had  failed  to  exhaust  their 
strength,  or  to  pluck  from  their  hearts  the  faith  which  had  been 
planted  in  them. 

"  When  one  reflects,"  said  their  guide  and  counsellor, 
Father  Parennin,  at  an  earlier  period  of  their  exile,  "  what  this 
illustrious  family  has  suffered  during  four  years  past,  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  a  more  formidable  trial,  or  one  which  could 
be  endured  with  more  Christian  generosity.  Princesses  of  the 
royal  blood,  who  had  always  lived  in  splendor  and  affluence, 
fallen  to  the  lowest  depths  of  indigence  ;  without  the  support  of 
their  husbands,  with  no  relatives  to  succor  them,  nor  friends 
to  console ;  having  ever  before  their  eyes  the  spectacle  of  their 
sons  in  chains,  destined  to  death,  and  their  young  daughters, 
more  hapless  still,  whose  lot  is  worse  than  death ;  unable  to 
receive  the  sacraments,  the  only  consolation  which  they  could 
taste  in  the  sad  condition  to  which  they  are  reduced  ; — to 
endure  all  these  woes,  and  yet  to  bear  such  a  deluge  of 
suffering,  not  only  without  diminution  of  faith,  though  so 
recently  converted  to  Christianity,  but  without  uttering  so 
much  as  one  accent  of  complaint ;  must  we  not  confess,  that 
even  the  constancy  of  the  Christian  heroes  of  the  first  ages  of 
the  Church  offers  nothing  more  admirable,  nothing  more 
heroic?"  Well  might  Father  Parennin  exclaim,  alluding  to 
the  reluctant  respect  paid  by  the  emperor  to  himself  and  his 
colleagues  at  Pekin,  "  Oh!  for  fewer  favors  to  the  missionaries, 
and  more  justice  to  the  religion  which  they  preach  !"  He  had 
himself  spent  more  than  forty  years  in  China,  was  the  intimate 
friend  of  Cang-hi,  whom  he  accompanied  during  eighteen  years 
in  all  his  journeys  into  Tartary ;  and  even  Yong-Iching  paid 
the  expenses  of  a  public  funeral  for  the  illustrious  missionary, 
who,  as  the  Russian  Timkowski  observes,  "  is  well  known  for 
the  share  he  had  in  fixing  the  frontier  between  Eussia  and 
China."f  Parennin  was  a  competent  judge  of  Christian 
heroism,  and  himself  a  master  of  the  spiritual  life ;  yet  he 

*  Hugh  Murray's  China,  vol.  i.,  cli.  viii.,  p.  275. 
f  Timkowski's'iZ'/m^s,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  i.,  p.  35. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  77 

declares,  in  his  letters  to  Europe,  that  nothing  could  surpass 
"  the  sublime  virtues"  displayed  by  these  admirable  confessors. 
Promises  and  threats  were  employed  by  turns  to  seduce  their 
constancy.  u  You  are  Mantcheou,"  said  their  former  friends, 
with  ingenious  perseverance ;  "  you  belong  to  the  royal  blood, 
and  yet  you  renounce  the  customs  of  your  ancestors  to  follow  a 
strange  law !"  But  remonstrance  and  sarcasm,  blandishments 
and  menaces,  were  equally  vain.  The  members  of  the  Portu- 
guese and  Russian  embassies,  who  visited  China  at  this  period, 
were  filled  with  astonishment  at  the  fortitude  of  these  new 
Christians,  and  declared,  on  their  return  to  Europe,  that  "  they 
had  found  the  Primitive  Church  in  the  remotest  wilds  of  Asia." 

But  the  emperor  was  as  steadfast  in  his  purpose  to  conquer, 
as  they  in  their  resolution  to  endure.  Furious  at  the  cairn 
patience  which  baffled  all  his  efforts,'  he  now  ordered  them  to 
be  removed  from  their  place  of  exile,  and  shut  up,  one  by  one, 
in  small  prisons,  six  feet  by  ten.  Into  these  dens  their  daily 
allowance  of  food,  barely  sufficient  to  maintain  life,  was  intro- 
duced through  a  small  aperture,  by  which  alone  they  main- 
tained a  semblance  of  intercourse  with  the  outer  world.  Al- 
ready they  were  beginning  to  sink  under  their  protracted  mis- 
eries, and  in  a  few  days,  one  of  the  princes,  when  visited  by  the 
guard,  was  found  lifeless  on  the  floor  of  his  oell.  One  by  one 
they  died.  A  little  while,  and  all  would  have  been  added  to 
the  company  of  martyrs ;  but  at  this  moment  the  hand  of  God, 
who  often  seems  to  delay  but  strikes  at  last,  was  stretched 
forth,  and  Yong-Tching  was  called  to  his  account.  In  1735  he 
expired,  and  his  son  Kien-long  reigned  in  his  stead. 

One  of  the  first  acts  of  the  new  emperor,  in  the  year  which 
followed  his  accession,  was  to  order  the  release  of  the  surviving 
princes,  who  had  so  long  been  buried  alive  by  his  father's  com- 
mand. As  the  noble  band,  of  whom  one  was  the  tenth  son  of 
Cang-hi,  passed  on  their  way  to  the  palace  from  which  they 
had  been  banished  for  fifteen  years,  the  people  knelt  with 
respect,  and  filled  the  air  with  acclamations.  But  the  hopes 
which  their  release  awakened  wrere  of  short  duration.  Kien- 
long,  though  naturally  humane,  was  unwilling  to  bring  shame 
on  the  policy  of  his  father,  and  once  more  the  decree  went 
forth  to  persecute  the  Christians. 

We  have  seen,  by  sufficient  evidence,  how  converts  of  exalted 
rank  witnessed  a  good  confession  in  exile  or  in  bonds,  and  wore 
out  by  patient  endurance  the  malice  of  the  persecutor.  Let  us 
inquire  whether  disciples  of  a  humbler  class  found  strength  to 
imitate  the  courage  of  these  Christian  princes,  and  to  glorify  the 
Holy  Name  in  the  hour  of  trial.  The  world  has  agreed,  in  every 
age,  to  accept  this  supreme  test  of  faith.  It  knows  that  men  are 


78  CHAPTER   II. 

not  so  enamored  of  torment  as  to  yield  their  limbs  to  the  knife 
or  the  brand,  when  a  word  or  a  sign  would  deliver  them  from 
both,  in  any  meaner  cause  than  that  for  which  St.  Peter  was 
crucified  and  St.  Paul  beheaded.  Other  religions  have  produced 
fanatics ;  Christianity  alone  may  boast  of  martyrs;  and  the  only 
form  of  Christianity  which  has  ever  begotten  willing  ones  is  that 
which  was  preached  in  China  by  Ricci  and  Schaal,  by  Verbiest 
and  Parennin.  We  are  about  to  trace  the  historical  results  of 
their  preaching.  For  nearly  three  centuries  the  blood  of  martyrs 
has  flowed  in  all  the  provinces  of  China,  in  the  empire  of  Ann  am, 
and  the  kingdom  of  Corea.  The  struggles  and  the  triumphs  of 
the  first  three  ages  of  Christianity  have  been  renewed  through 
an  equal  space  of  time  in  the' regions  beyond  the  Ganges.  We 
have  no  space  to  recount  all  the  details  of  that  still  unfinished 
warfare.  Our  attempt  will  be  limited  to  such  a  sketch,  neces- 
sarily incomplete  and  fragmentary,  of  the  later  history  of  reli- 
gion in  China,  as  may  suffice  to  prove,  by  testimony  which  man 
has  never  refused  to  accept,  that  both  the  missionaries  who  died 
in  that  land,  and  the  disciples  of  every  class  who  shared  their 
lot,  were  in  all  points  the  same  order  of  men,  animated  by  the 
same  invincible  faith,  and  abounding  in  the  same  Divine  gifts, 
as  those  who  taught  and  suffered  in  the  day  when  Christianity 
first  commenced  its  combat  with  the  powers  of  darkness.  The 
picture  which  we  are  going  to  draw  may  not  exhibit  in  all  its 
parts  the  unities  of  time  and  space ;  the  various  scenes  which 
it  will  unfold  may  sometimes  seem  too  closely  crowded  together, 
sometimes  too  widely  separated  ;  three  kingdoms  and  twenty- 
one  provinces  must  find  their  place  in  it ;  but  one  lesson  every 
form  and  every  object  in  that  picture  will  teach  us,  the  only 
one  which  we  need  care  to  learn  from  it, — that  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries are  always  and  everywhere  the  same,  and  that  God 
is  marvellous  in  His  saints.* 

The  persecution  which  devastated  the  Church  in  China  during 
the  reign  of  Kien-long  was  only  the  continuation  of  sufferings 
with  which  the  Christians  of  that  empire  were  already  familiar. 
During  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  they  had  been  tried  in 
the  fiery  furnace,  with  no  other  result  than  to  purify  their 
faith  and  augment  their  numbers.  In  many  of  the  provinces 
there,  had  been  three  generations  of  martyrs  in  the  same 
family.  We  have  omitted,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  these  earlier 
details;  the  great  persecution  of  1736  must  not,  however,  be 
passed  in  silence. 

*  The  writer  desires  to  observe,  that  if  in  these  pages  the  titles  of  Saint,  or 
Apostle,  or  Martyr,  are  applied  to  persons  to  whom  the  Church  has  not,  by  a 
formal  decree,  conceded  them,  such  terms  are  employed  in  perfect  submission 
to  the  decree  of  Urban  VIII. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  79 

"  All,  except  a  very  small  number,"  says  one  who  witnessed 
that  event,  "  who  were  intimidated  by  the  apparatus  of  torture, 
displayed  heroic  constancy  amid  the  most  cruel  torments.  In 
vain  they  beat  their  faces  with  rods  till  they  were  covered  with 
blood,  or  stretched  them  on  the  ground  and  lacerated  them  with 
whips  and  sticks;  they  answered  constantly, '  We  will  live  and 
die  Christians.'  "*  And  one  result  of  this  noble  fortitude  was 
to  attract,  even  in  pagan  witnesses,  reluctant  esteem  for  the 
religion  which  inspired  it.  The  very  judges,  we  are  told,  filled 
with  involuntary  admiration,  suggested  to  their  patient  victims 
to  apostatize  with  their  lips  only,  while  they  preserved  their 
religion  in  their  hearts.  "  Why  should  you  die  ?"  said  the 
mandarins ;  "  only  obey  the  command  of  the  emperor  by  out- 
ward compliance,  and  believe  what  you  like  in  secret."  But 
it  was  not  thus  the  disciples  of  Parennin  and  his  companions 
understood  the  obligations  of  a  Christian.  "You  need  not 
fear,"  said  one  of  them,  while  the  executioners  were  binding 
his  limbs  before  the  torture  commenced,  "lest  I  should  move ; 
a  Christian  is  only  too  happy  to  suffer  for  his  faith."  Then  his 
trial  commenced ;  but  "  the  mandarin  was  weary  of  tormenting 
the  neophyte,  before  the  latter  was  of  enduring  the  anguish." 
And  when  it  was  over,  his  mother,  who  had  stood  without 
wavering  by  his  side,  seeing  him  all  mutilated  and  covered  with 
blood,  fondly  embraced  him,  and  exclaimed,  "  Come,  let  us 
hasten  to  thank  God  for  the  favors  which  He  has  shown 
you." 

Another,  who  was  a  mass  of  wounds,  and  incapable  of  move- 
ment, being  adjured  by  an  aged  heathen  relative,  who  threatened 
to  die  at  his  feet  if  he  refused  to  apostatize,  answered  witjb  a 
noble  pleasantry,  which  may  remind  us  of  the  sublime  jest  of 
St.  Laurence,  "  I  should  very  much  regret  your  death,  but  at 
all  events,  in  my  present  condition,  they  can  hardly  suspect  me 
of  having  caused  it."f 

A  third,  who  was  by  profession  a  physician,  being  almost 
beaten  to  death,  a  youth,  whose  godfather  he  was,  asked  permis- 
sion to  take  his  place.  "Why,  my  son,"  he  replied,  "would 
you  deprive  me  of  the  crown  which  God  has  prepared  for  me  ?" 
And  these  are  only  a  few  examples,  among  many  thousands, 
.of  the  spirit  which  the  faith  of  the  martyrs  St.  Stephen  and  St.. 
James  had  kindled  in  the  Christians  of  China. 

During  more  than  ten  years  this  bloody  persecution  raged. 
A  few  gave  way,  as  St.  Cyprian  tells  us  they  did  even  in  his 
day,  under  their  torments ;  but  the  great  majority — not  princes 


*  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  xx.,  p.  333. 
f  Id.,  p.  351. 


80  CHAPTER    II. 

only,  but  magistrates,  soldiers,  merchants,  boatmen,  women, 
and  even  children,*' — rivalled  the  heroism  of  the  primitive  con- 
fessors. Everywhere  the  same  scenes  occurred,  and  everywhere 
with  the  same  result.  "'On  every  side,"  writes  one  who  bore 
his  part  in  the  persecution  of  1746,  "  are  heard  the  groans  of 
the  Christians;  everywhere  they  are  bound  in  fetters  or  put  to 
the  torture ;  everywhere  they  seek  to  force  them,  by  every 
device  of  cruelty,  to  renounce  Jesus  Christ."  But  they  had 
been  taught  by  men  of  the  school  of  St.  Paul,  and  the  lesson 
was  engraved  on  their  hearts,  that  "  the  sufferings  of  this  pres- 
ent time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  glory  which 
shall  be  revealed  to  us."  Even  the  weakest  disciples  emulated 
the  example  of  the  strong.  A  girl  of  nineteen  being  dragged 
before  the  tribunal,  showed  such  joy  in  her  countenance  at  the 
honor  which  she  was  about  to  receive  in  confessing  the  Name 
of  Jesus,  that  the  enraged  mandarin  exclaimed,  "Knowest 
thou  not  that  I  have  power  to  condemn  thee  to  death?" 
"  Here  is  my  head,"  replied  the  new  St.  Agnes ;  "  you  can 
order  it  to  be  cut  off,  but  it  will  be  to  me  unspeakable  joy  to 
lay  down  my  life."  And  then  the  heathen  judges,  perplexed, 
as  their  forefathers  were  wont  to  be,  by  a  valor  which  they 
admired  without  comprehending,  took  counsel  together  how  to 
deal  with  such  incurable  perversity.  It  was  intolerable  that 
even  girls  and  children  should  laugh  at  their  threats,  and 
despise  their  torments ;  caring  only,  as  Festus  complained  to 
Agrippa  a  good  many  ages  before,  about  "questions  of  their 
own  superstition,  and  of  one  Jesus  deceased,  whom  (they) 
•affirmed  to  be  alive."f  The  world  is  ever  the  same,  and  resents 
nothing  so  much  as  the  faith  which  dares  to  survive  its  feeble 
satire,  and  the  courage  which  only  smiles  at  its  impotent  cruelty. 
And  so  these  mandarins  wisely  came  to  the  conclusion,  that  some 
new  scheme  must  be  adopted.  As  they  could  not  overcome  the 
disciples,  they  resolved  to  lay  hold  of  their  teachers.  And  then 
the  word  went  forth,  that  search  should  everywhere  be  made 
for  the  missionaries — with  this  additional  precaution,  that  every 
magistrate  whose  vigilance  they  contrived  to  elude  should  be 
deemed  a  partner  in  their  guilty  rebellion,  and  share  their 
punishment.'  It  was  impossible  to  stimulate  more  effectively 
the  zeal  of  the  provincial  mandarins. 

Hitherto,  the  missionaries,  though  eagerly  aspiring  to  the 
crown  of  martyrdom,  which  they  had  come  so  far  to  seek,  had 
consented,  for  the  sake  of  their  flocks,  to  withdraw  themselves 
from  danger.  It  was  the  injunction  of  the  Master  to  His  first 


*  Rorlibaclier,  Eistoire  de  VEglise  Catholique,  tome  xxviii.,  liv.,  xci.,  p.  470. 
f  Aqts  xxv.  19. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  81 

Apostles,  and  had  always  been  a  rule  with  their  successors,  not 
to  seize  the  crown  till  He  offered  it  to  them.  "  We  know," 
says  a  Chinese  bishop  and  confessor  of  our  own  day,  "that  it  is 
not  permitted  to  anticipate  the  designs  of  Providence,  without 
a  special  impulse  of  Divine  grace,  nor  unless  one  is  mercifully 
predestined  to  receive  the  palm  of  martyrdom."*  In  the  per- 
secution of  1746,  however,  the  missionaries  did  not  doubt  that 
the  time  had  come  to  die.  They  had  taught  their  children 
every  other  lesson,  and  they  now  prepared  to  teach  them  this. 

Father  Alcober  was  the  first  seized,  and  the  first  tortured. 
When  the  obscene  pagans  addressed  to  him  impure  interroga- 
tories, he  answered  with  a  loud  voice,  "  Questions  worthy  of  a 
minister  of  Satan  do  not  deserve  any  reply."  These  questions 
referred  to  female  converts  who  had  consecrated  themselves  to 
a  life  of  chastity.  "  Who  advised  you,"  they  said,  on  the  same 
occasion,  to  a  young  woman  before  the  tribunal,  "  to  embrace 
virginity  ?"  "  Myself,"  she  replied  ;  and  she  was  immediately 
consigned  to  the  torturers. f 

Fathers  Royo,  Serrano,  and  Diaz  were  captured  in  succes- 
sion, and  horribly  mutilated.  The  first  confessed,  in  answer  to 
the  inquiry  of  the  judges,  that  he  had  been  thirty  years  in  China ; 
the  two  last  were  handed  over  to  the  executioners  without  even 
a  question.  But  it  was  the  bishop,  the  venerable  Sanz,  who 
was  the  special  object  of  their  search.  To  save  the  Christians 
the  vexations  and  sufferings  which  they  endured  in  their  gener- 
ous attempts  to  conceal  him,  he  considered  it  his  duty  to  give 
himself  up,  and  having  addressed  the  tribunal  with  the  courage 
and  authority  of  an  apostle,  he  received  at  once  twenty-five 
blows  in  the  i'ace,  a  number  afterwards  increased,  in  spite  of  his 
venerable  age,  to  ninety-five ;  and  finally,  after  a  fruitful  apos- 
tolate  of  thirty  years,  was  martyred,  on  the  26th  of  May,  1747. 
His  last  words  to  the  executioner  were,  "My  friend,  I  am 
going  to  heaven  ;  would  that  I  could  take  you  with  me."  His 
blood  was  collected,  according  to  custom,  by  a  famous  brigand 
and  malefactor,  who  became  not  long  after  a  fervent  Christian. 

The  public  sentence  pronounced  against  Bishop  Sanz,  which 
deserves  notice  as  a  testimony  of  the  heathen  themselves  to  the 
progress  of  the  faith,  contained  the  following  notable  words  :— 
u  The  number  of  those  whom,  lie  has  already  perverted  is  so 
great,  that  to  whatever  side  we  turn  in  this  district,  there  is 
nothing  else  to  be  seen;  and  what  is  more,  the  very  members 
of  the  tribunals,  and  even  the  soldiers,  are  devoted  to  him.vj 
"  But  what  gave  a  singular  and  striking  character  to  the  apos- 

*  Annals  of  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith,  vol.  vii.,  p.  257.    English  edition. 
f  Lett-res  Edifiantes,  tome  xxiii.,  p.  59. 
t  Annals,  vol.  ix.,  p.  300. 


82  CHAPTER   II. 

tolic  labors  of  the  Bishop  of  Mauricastro,"  says  the  latest  biog- 
rapher of  St.  Dominic,  "  was  his  success  in  winning  the  Chinese 
not  merely  to  embrace  the  Christian  faith,  but  to  aim  at  the 
highest  grades  of  perfection.  The  number  of  Christian  virgins 
desirous  of  consecrating  themselves  by  vow  to  God  was  so 
great,  as  to  recall  the  days  of  the  primitive  Church." 

History  has  preserved  with  peculiar  care,  as  if  conscious  of 
their  special  value  and  significance,  whatever  fragments  of 
pagan  literature  referring  to  the  triumphs  of  Christianity  in  the 
tirst  ages  have  survived  to  later  times.  The  great  Chinese  per- 
secution of  1747  has  fortunately  been  recorded  by  a  heathen 
annalist,  and  in  an  official  document.  In  a  report  to  the  em- 
peror by  the  viceroy  of  one  of  the  most  considerable  provinces, 
the  sovereign  is  warmly  urged  by  his  deputy  to  take  note,  not 
only  of  the  wide-spread  influence  of  the  missionaries,  but  of  the 
audacity  with  which  their  disciples  openly  manifested  their 
sympathy  and  love.  "  As  they  were  conducted  in  chains,"  says 
this  officer,  "  thousands  of  persons  came  to  meet  them,  and  to 
serve  them  as  an  escort  of  honor.  Many  showed  by  their  tears 
the  grief  which  they  felt ;  girls  and  women  knelt  before  them, 
and  offered  them  all  kinds  of  refreshments.  Every  one  wished 
to  touch  their  clothes."*  Pie  almost  seems  to  be  describing 
the  conduct  of  those  earlier  converts,  animated  by  a  similar 
spirit,  who  also  touched  the  body  of  St.  Paul  with  "  handker- 
chiefs and  aprons,"  to  which  the  Almighty,  approving  this  de- 
vout use  of  relics,  gave  power,  as  Holy  Scripture  relates,  to 
heal  diseases,  and  put  demons  to  flight.  But  the  heathen 
viceroy  continues  thus :  "  A  young  man  named  Tching-Sieou 
had  the  impudence  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  this  multitude, 
and  to  exhort  them,  saying,  amongst  other  things,  clt  is  for 
(rod  that  you  suffer ;  let  not  death  itself  overcome  you.'  "  It 
is  impossible  to  desire  a  more  impressive  testimony  either  to 
the  character  of  the  Chinese  converts,  or  to  the  influence  and 
authority  of  their  apostolic  teachers. 

The  narrative  of  the  eloquent  viceroy  appears  to  have  stimu- 
lated his  sovereign  to  fresh  exertions.  It  was  not  to  be  endured 
that  aliens  and  foreigners  should  thus  provoke  his  subjects  to 
what  is  called  sometimes,  even  in  our  own  day,  and  by  men  who 
deem  themselves  Christians,  u  a  divided  allegiance."  But  it 
was  the  fate  of  this  emperor,  as  of  all  the  enemies  of  Christi- 
anity, to  minister  to  the  glory  of  the  faith  which  he  wished  to 
uproot.  The  "  Masters  of  the  religion  of  Jesus,"  as  he  styled 
them,  were  not  men  to  be  conquered  by  such  an  adversary  as 
this;  and  if  they  invited  their  brave  and  generous  disciples  to 

*  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  xxiii.,  p.  72. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  83 

suffer  for  Christ,  first  showed  them,  by  their  own  example,  how 
to  do  so.  They  owed  this  debt  to  their  followers,  and  they  freely 
paid  it.  "  What  gort  of  a  God,"  said  the  presiding  mandarin  to 
Father  Beuth,  when  he  stood  before  the  tribunal,  "is  He  whom 
you  wish  people  to  adore?"  "He  who  created  the  heavens  and 
the  e^irth."  "  Oh,  the  wretch  ;  as  if  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
were  created  !  Give  him  ten  strokes."  These  were  blows  given 
by  a  heavy  bamboo  across  the  face,  the  head  being  turned  back 
over  the  shoulders.  It  was  a  common  thing  for  the  sufferer  to 
faint  after  the  first  or  second.  Then  writing  the  Holy  Name  in 
Chinese  characters,  the  mandarin  asked*the  confessor  to  whom 
that  name  referred.  It  was  not  now  the  moment  for  reserve  ; 
and  therefore,  just  as  St.  Stephen  had  cried  with  his  latest 
breath,  "  I  see  the  Son  of  Man  standing  on  the  right  hand  of 
God,"  so  this  new  witness  announced,  even  to  that  pagan  crowd, 
"  It  is  the  Name  of  the  second  Person  of  the  Blessed  Trinity, 
who  became  Man  for  our  salvation."  "  Ten  strokes  more !" 
shouted  the  mandarin ;  and  the  same  torment  was  a  third  time 
inflicted,  when  the  bleeding  victim  once  more  proclaimed  with 
unfaltering  lips  the  titles  of  his  God  and  Saviour.  Two  months 
after  he  died  of  his  wounds ;  his  only  delight  in  these  last  days 
of  his  life  being  to  hear  the  Passion  of  our  Lord  read  to  him  by 
his  fellow-prisoners. 

It  would  be  no  exaggeration  to  say,  that  the  missionaries 
were  all,  from  first  to  last,  such  as  Father  Beuth.  No  menace 
could  daunt,  no  anguish  overcome  them.  One  after  another 
they  fell,  but  as  each  left  a  space  in  the  ranks,  another  hurried 
forward  to  fill  it.  On  the  12th  of  September,  1748 — for  each 
year  resembled  that  which  preceded  it — F.  F.  Tristan  de  Atter- 
mis  and  Joseph  Henriquez  were  strangled  in  prison,  after  the 
usual  tortures.  On  the  28th  of  October,  four  Dominican  fathers 
received  their  crown  together.  Every  year,  almost  every  month, 
paid  its  tribute  of  blood;  and  if  any  still  survived  in  that  long 
and  merciless  persecution,  it  was  because  they  consented  to 
delay  for  a  brief  space  the  final  triumph,  and  charitably  ac- 
cepted a  hidden  ministry  amongst  their  flocks,  postponing  for 
their  sakes  the  coveted  glory  of  martyrdom. 

Yet  their  spiritual  children,  even  when  deprived  of  their 
pastors,  were  not  unable  .to  bear  that  supreme  calamity.  They 
proved,  in  many  a  province  of  China,  that  they  could  walk 
bravely  to  the  stake,  though  no  apostle  stood  by  to  encourage 
them  ;  that  they  could  live  during  long  years  by  the  strictest 
rule  of  religion,  even  when  the  minister  of  Christ  was  taken 
away  from  among  them.  Both  these  facts  are  attested  by 
capable  witnesses. 

We  might  fill  a  volume  with  examples  of  their  constancy. 


84:  CHAPTER  II. 

Many  who  think  they  would  gladly  embrace  a  sharp  but  speedy 
death  for  the  sake  of  Jesus,  would,  perhaps,  fail  under  pro- 
tracted torments.  Many  who  could  bear  even  these  while  sur- 
rounded by  their  brethren,  and  aided  by  their  prayers,  would 
languish  and  grow  cold  if  deprived  for  years  of  all  the  ordinances 
of  religion.  The  Chinese  Christians  have  endured  both  these 
trials.  The  celebrated  Father  Parennin  was  acquainted  with  an 
old  Tartar  officer,  one  of  a  company  of  Christians  living  near 
the  great  wall  of  China,  to  whom  for  many  years  this  worthy 
soldier  had  acted  as  a  sort  of  lay  chaplain.  "I  assemble  these 
Christians,"  he  said,  "  in  my  house  on  festival  days ;  we  pray 
together ;  I  give  them  notice  of  the  days  of  abstinence  arid 
fasting.  All  are  eager  for  the  happiness  of  seeing  a  missionary, 
in  order  to  hear  mass,  and  partake  of  the  sacraments.  Most  of 
them  have  seen  none  for  twelve  years.'7* 

There  is,  perhaps,  nothing  more  striking  in  the  history  of 
Chinese  missions — and  we  shall  meet  the  same  fact  in  almost 
every  other  land, — nothing  which  illustrates  more  powerfully 
the  character  both  of  the  teachers  and  their  disciples,  than  the 
ardor  with  which  the  latter  clung  to  their  religion,  even  when 
separated  for  long  periods  from  their  spiritual  guides,  and  from 
all  the  appointed  channels  of  grace  and  consolation.  Nineteen 
years  after  the  martyrdom  of  Father  Beuth,  though  the  perse- 
cution in  which  he  fell  had  raged  almost  without  intermission, 
we  tind  a  missionary  of  his  class  not  only  expressing  his  admi- 
ration at  the  "  courage  with  which  God  inspires  these  Asiatics, 
so  pusillanimous  by  nature,"  but  extolling  the  innocence  and 
marvellous  fidelity  of  those  "  who,  without  even  the  opportuni- 
ty of  practising  the  duties  of  their  religion,  since  they  cannot 
so  much  as  see  a  missionary,  never  fall  into  apostasy,  and  care- 
fully cause  their  children  to  be  baptized. "f  But  we  must  refer 
for  examples  to  the  works  devoted  exclusively  to  the  history  of 
religion  in  China:  the  field  which  it  is  proposed  to  traverse  in 
these  volumes  is  too  vast  to  permit  even  the  attempt  to  exhaust 
a  single  portion  of  it. 

One  special  feature  of  the  Chinese  missions,  which  even  in 
this  rapid  sketch  we  are  obliged  to  notice,  is  the  perpetual  re- 
currence of  the  same  facts  in  all  parts  of  the  empire.  Every- 
where the  missionaries  were  the  same,  the  affliction  of  their 
converts  the  same,  and  the  fortitude  with  which  they  were  en- 
dured. Their  history  in  one  province  exactly  resembles  their 
history  in  every  other.  Pass  for  a  moment  from  China  Proper, 
where  a  strong  central  administration  secured  uniformity  in  the 

*  Lettres,  tome  xx.,  p.  15. 
f  Tome  xxiii.,  p.  483. 


MISSIONS   IN  CHINA.  85 

details  of  the  persecution,  to  Tong-King  or  Corea,  and  you  will 
think  you  are  still  in  the  company  of  the  mandarins  who  exe- 
cuted the  orders  of  Yong-Tching  or  Kien-long.  The  proceed- 
ings are  identical,  and  their  results  also. 


MISSION   OF   TONG-KING. 

The  mission  of  Tong-King  was  founded  in  1627  by  Father 
Alexander  de  Rhodes.  In  a  few  months  he  converted  two 
hundred  idolatrous  priests,  a  sister  of  the  king,  and  seventeen  of 
his  near  relations.  In  less  than  three  years,  he  and  his  com- 
panion Father  Antony  Marques  had  baptized  nearly  six  thou- 
sand pagans,  including  several  bonzes  of  great  repute  with 
their  countrymen  for  wisdom  and  virtue,  but  who  now  willing- 
ly accepted  the  humble  function  of  catechists,  and  "rendered 
incalculable  services  to  the  missionaries  in  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel."*  The  usual  test  of  their  sincerity  was  quickly  ap- 
plied. By  the  influence  of  the  king's  wives,  who  trembled  lest 
the  monarch  himself  should  embrace  a  doctrine  which  con- 
demned polygamy,  both  the  missionaries  were  banished.  Would 
the  newly  converted  bonzes  still  adhere  to  a  religion  which  now 
seemed  to  have  vanished  like  a  dream  ?  Had  the  faith  already 
taken  such  deep  root  in  their  souls  as  to  support  them  in  such  a 
trial  as  this  ?  It  had  done  more — it  had  made  them  apostles  ! 
When  the  two  Fathers  entered  the  kingdom  again  by  stealth  in 
the  following  year,  they  found  that,  in  that  brief  space,  they* 
fervent  catechists,  not  content  with  preserving  their  own  faith, 
had  prepared  four  thousand  neophytes  for  the  reception  of  the 
sacraments.  In  1639,  only  twelve  years  after  de  Rhodes  had 
first  entered  Tong-King,  there  were  already  eighty-two  thousand 
five  hundred  Christians!  In  seventy-two  villages  there  were 
hardly  any  pagars  remaining.  In  the  two  years  1645  and  1646, 
twenty -four  thousand  Tong-kinese  were  baptized.  Finally,  be- 
fore half  a  century  had  elapsed,  the  almost  incredible  number 
of  two  hundred  thousand  converts  had  been  won  to  Christ. f 

Thus  far  the  history  of  religion  in  Tong-King  corresponds 
with  what  we  have  called  the  u  first  epoch"  in  the  missions  of 
China  Proper.  The  second  was  now  to  commence,  and  with 
precisely  the  same  results  as  in  the  former  empire.  The  fire 
which  was  to  "try  the  work"  of  the  missionaries  in  Tong-King 
was  already  kindled  in  1630,  but  it  was  not  till  a  few  years  later 
that  the  systematic  persecution  was  organized  which  has  never 

*  Tome  xvi.,  p.  3. 

f  Henrion,  tome  ii.,  2de  partie,  p.  390.  Cf.  Voyages  et  Missions  du  P.  A.  de 
Rhodes,  p.  88  (1854). 


86  CHAPTER  II. 

ceased  from  that  hour,  and  which  was  destined  to  try  to  the 
uttermost,  but  never  to  exhaust,  during  more  than  two  centuries, 
the  faith  and  courage  of  these  afflicted  Christians.  In  vain  the 
missionaries  were  slain  or  forcibly  deported  ;  their  disciples  con- 
tinued faithful  even  in  their  absence.  When  Father  Le  Royer, 
and  his  companion  Father  Paregaud,  secretly  entered  the 
kingdom,  on  the  22d  of  June,  1692,  they  found  that  great 
numbers,  by  whom  they  were  received  with  transports  of  en- 
thusiasm, had  not  been  able  to  approach  the  sacraments  for  a 
long  period  of  years.  And  then  they  commenced  their  secret 
and  perilous  ministry.  "  I  pass  whole  days,"  says  the  former, 
in  a  letter  to  his  brother,  M.  Le  Royer  des  Arsix,  "  either  con- 
cealed in  a  boat,  which  I  only  quit  at  night  to  visit  the  villages 
by  the  river-side,  or  hidden  in  some  retired  house."  He  always 
celebrated  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  before  daybreak,  and 
then  returned  to  spend  the  long  hours  of  the  coming  day  in  his 
place  of  concealment.  Yet,  in  spite  of  difficulties  at  least  equal 
to  those  which  were  encountered  and  overcome  by  the  first 
Apostles ;  in  spite  of  the  terrible  lot  to  which  every  convert 
saw  himself  inevitably  doomed,  and  which  would  have  appalled 
any  but  true  disciples  of  the  Cross ;  in  spite  of  sufferings  and 
torments  which  would  probably  suffice  in  a  few  months  to 
obliterate  every  trace  of  the  languid  or  nominal  (Christianity  of 
certain  countries  of  northern  Europe ;  the  work  of  conversion 
was  hardly  suspended  for  a  single  hour.  In  1694:,  Father  Le 
Royer  himself  baptized  467  adults,  though  they  could  only 
Have  received  his  instructions,  as  Nicodemus  did  those  of  our 
Blessed  Lord,  under  the  shelter  of  night.  In  1695,  amid  the 
same  unceasing  dangers,  he  admitted  435 ;  in  1696,  in  spite  of 
the  horrible  persecution  then  raging,  218  ;  in  1697,  247  ;  in 
1698,  310.  And  his  companions  were  all  engaged  in  the  same 
work,  with  exactly  the  same  fruits.  u  Many  of  our  Fathers," 
he  writes,  "  have  had  a  larger  number  of  baptisms  and  confes- 
sions than  myself."* 

A  single  example  will  show  what  manner  of  men  they  were 
whom  they  thus  gained  to  God,  and  how  they  confessed  the 
faith  which  the  prospect  of  anguish  and  death  could  not  deter 
them  from  embracing,  nor  the  dread  reality  persuade  them  to 
abandon.  In  1721,  all  the  tribunals  throughout  the  land  were 
thronged  with  Christians  brought  up  for  judgment.  Luke  Thu, 
an  aged  disciple,  is  tirst  commanded  to  trample  on  the  Cross, 
perhaps  in  the  hope  that  his  example  might  influence  the 
younger  confessors.  Lifting  up  the  sign  of  salvation  from  the 
ground,  in  the  sight  of  the  heathen  crowd,  he  pressed  it  to  his 

*  Lettres,  tome  xvi.,  p.  18. 


MISSIONS    IN    CHINA.  87 

bosom,  and  exclaimed  aloud:  '•  My  Lord  and  my  God,  Thou 
who  piercest  the  thoughts  of  all  hearts  knowest  the  secrets  of 
mine ;  but  I  desire  that  they  should  be  known  to  these  also, 
who  think  to  dismay  me  by  their  threats,  that  they  may  under- 
stand that  neither  the  greatest  torments,  nor  the  most  cruel 
death,  can  ever  separate  me  from  Thy  love."  The  mandarins, 
in  choosing  a  victim,  could  hardly  have  made  a  more  unfortu- 
nate selection ;  and  they  appear  to  have  been  so  completely 
overawed  by  the  majesty  of  the  brave  old  man,  that  for  that 
day  he  was  sent  back  to  prison.  But  the  martyrdom  which  he 
had  merited  was  only  postponed.* 

We  reserve  to  the  third  period  of  these  missions  fuller  illus- 
trations of  the  character  of  the  lay  Chinese  martyrs,  both 
because  we  have  no  space  for  the  innumerable  examples  which 
abound  in  the  two  earlier  epochs,  and  because  the  narrative  of 
such  triumphs  of  Christian  heroism  occurring  in  our  own  day, 
and  as  it  were  under  our  very  eyes,  will  perhaps  excite  deeper 
consideration,  and  serve  to  illustrate  more  impressively  the 
prodigious  contrast  of  which  we  are  not  yet  to  speak,  but  which 
it  is  our  purpose  to  trace  hereafter  in  every  land.  The  world 
hears  with  apathy  of  actions,  however  sublime,  from  which  it 
is  already  separated  by  more  than  a  century,  and  reserves  all 
its  attention  for  newer  events.  For  this  reason  we  do  not  linger 
over  the  past.  The  present,  we  shall  see,  has  still  more  urgent 
claims  to  our  notice,  and  will  repay  it  with  still  more  instruc- 
tive and  abundant  evidence. 

But  we  must  not  close  our  account  of  the  second  period  of  the 
Tong-King  mission  without  showing,  by  at  least  a  few  instances, 
that  the  missionaries  in  this  province  resembled  their  brethren 
in  every  other. 

The  emperor  Chua,  a  worthy  rival  of  the  more  potent  mon- 
arch at  Pekin  whom  he  acknowledged  as  his  suzerain,  had 
commanded  that  search  should  everywhere  be  made  for  the 
missionaries.  Fathers  Francis  Buccharelli  and  John  Baptist 
Messari,  both  already  worn  out  with  disease  and  toil,  for  their 
life  had  long  been  a  daily  martyrdom,  were  the  first  victims. 
In  vain  some  of  the  higher  officers  of  the  court,  cognizant  of 
their  pure  and  holy  lives,  pleaded  in  their  favor,  declaring 
them  "  irreproachable  in  their  conduct."  Father  Messari  sunk 
to  rest  in  prison,  before  the  knife  or  the  brand  could  be  applied. 
Buccharelli,  accompanied  by  a  willing  escort  of  ten  of  his  own 
converts,  was  led  to  martyrdom.  They  marched  together  to 
death  in  a  kind  of  triumphant  procession,  for  in  a  few  moments 
heaven  was  to  be  opened  to  them.  Amongst  the  crowd  who 

*  Lettres,  tome  xvi.,  p.  41. 


88  CHAPTER   II. 

followed  was  the  aged  Luke  Thu ;  and  when  some,  compas- 
sionating his  venerable  years,  would  fain  have  pushed  him 
back,  that  the  mandarins  might  overlook  him,  "Not  so,"  he 
answered,  still  struggling  to  the  front,  "  these  are  my  brothers." 

On  the  12th  of  January,  1737,  Fathers  Alvarez,  Cratz,  D'A- 
breu,  and  Da  Cunha, — three  of  them  members  of  noble  houses, 
all  subjects  of  different  European  kingdoms,  but  all  united  by 
religion  with  a  closer  tie  than  that  of  family  or  nation, — suffered 
martyrdom  in  the  same  place,  and  at  the  same  hour.  So  bright 
with  grace  and  unearthly  joy  was  the  face  of  Da  Cunha,  as  he 
walked  with  his  brethren  to  the  place  of  execution,  that  a  man- 
darin, puzzled  by  such  unseasonable  rapture,  and  utterly  mis- 
taking its  cause,  exclaimed,  with  angry  contempt,  "This  foreign 
madman  thinks  they  are  only  taking  him  to  Macao !"  Others 
among  the  heathen  bystanders  were  heard  to  observe,  with 
more  discernment,  "  It  seems  that  death  is  the  delight  of  these 
foreigners.  What  kind  of  a  law  is  this,  which  teaches  men  to 
despise  life,  and  to  embrace  death  with  so  much  joy  and  satis- 
faction ?"  It  was  the  after-contemplation  of  these  mysterious 
scenes,  of  which  their  own  philosophy  supplied  no  interpreta- 
tion, which  so  often  led  the  heathen,  according  to  the  universal 
law  of  Christian  missions,  to  embrace  the  religion  of  which 
such  scenes  attested  the  divine  power. 

There  was  hardly  a  moment's  pause  in  the  struggle  of  which 
we  have  only  noticed  a  few  characteristic  incidents.  In  1750 
the  same  events  recurred,  and  on  a  larger  scale.  Once  more 
the  prisons  were  choked  with  confessors,  many  of  whom  died  of 
starvation.  One  of  the  bishops  in  Toiik-King  was  pressed  to  the 
earth  by  a  heavy  weight,  and  bore  the  torture  for  eighteen  days. 
Father  Laureygo,  and  other  missionaries,  shared  the  same  fate ; 
and  the  heathen,  who  came  to  gaze  upon  them,  went  away  tilled 
with  astonishment,  and  sorely  perplexed  by  "the  heavenly  joy 
which  illumined  their  faces,"  even  in  the  midst  of  their  torments. 
Finally,  on  the  28th  of  August  of  the  same  year,  all  the  surviving 
missionaries  were  forcibly  dragged  on  board  a  vessel, — the  per- 
secutors having  decided  that  it  was  no  use  to  kill  them,  as  their 
death  only  multipled  converts, — and  were  accompanied  by  great 
numbers  of  Christians,  who,  in  spite  of  the  barbarity  of  the 
pagan  soldiers,  filled  the  air  with  their  lamentations,  and  pros- 
trated themselves  to  receive  the  last  blessing  of  the  fathers  and 
guides  whom  they  seemed  once  more  to  be  losing  forever. 

At  the  time  of  this  last  outbreak,  which  closed  the  second 
epoch  of  the  Cochin-Chinese  mission,  the  Jesuit  Fathers  had 
more  than  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  Christians  under 
their  charge,  the  Lazarists  eighty  thousand,  the  missionaries  of 
Propaganda  about  thirty  thousand,  and  the  Dominicans  about 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  89 

twenty  thousand;  making  a  total  of  more  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  converts  in  Tong-King  alone.  The  persecution 
continued  after  their  departure,  but  though  some  fell  away,  the 
great  majority  were  able  to  bear  it;  and  it  is  only  their  invin- 
cible fortitude,  sustained  by  the  teaching  and  example  of  the 
missionaries,  which  explains  the  almost  incredible  results  ob- 
tained in  this  terrible  mission.  In  1857,  Bishop  Retord,  the 
well-known  Yicar  Apostolic  of  Western  Tong-King,  who  has 
himself  braved  death  in  every  form,  and  whose  continued  exist- 
ence is  not  the  least  extraordinary  fact  in  this  history,  announced 
to  Europe  that  the  Annamite  Christians  then  numbered  about 
five  hundred  and  thirty  thousand,  of  whom  four  hundred  and 
three  thousand  nine  hundred  had  actually  partaken  of  one  or 
other  of  the  sacraments  during  the  previous  year.* 

A  new  fact  will  also  claim  our  attention  when  we  enter  upon 
the  third  and  last  epoch  of  this  mission,  because  it  will  furnish 
independent  and  unexpected  testimony  to  its  astonishing  tri- 
umphs. 

AVe  shall  then  meet  native  exiles  from  this  land  of  martyrs,  in 
the  English  or  Dutch  settlements  of  the  Indian  Archipelago,  and 
find  them,  by  Protestant  testimony,  as  full  of  faith  and  zeal  as 
their  martyred  ancestors,  and  answering  the  solicitations  of  Pro- 
testant emissaries,  as  the  latter  will  inform  us,  with  calm  but 
earnest  rebuke;  so  that  when  the  Rev.  Mr.  Abeel,  as  he  relates 
himself,  met  some  of  these  Chinese  exiles  in  Batavia,  and  con- 
fessed to  them  that  he  and  his  companions  made  no  converts, 
they  replied,  "The  fault  is  in  your  doctrines;  if  they  were 
true,  there  would  be  no  lack  of  genuine  disciples."f 

In  truth  there  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  Christianity  more 
admirable  than  the  fidelity  of  these  Asiatic  confessors.  "I  am 
astonished,"  says  a  missionary  who  succeeded  towards  the  close 
of  the  last  century  in  penetrating  into  the  interior  of  the 
country,  u  that  the  greater  part  of  the  Christians  make  confes- 
sions in  which  I  can  hardly  find  matter  for  absolution.  I  sus- 
pected at  first  that  they  were  imperfectly  instructed ;  but  the 
simple  manner  and  devout  tone  in  which  they  reply  to  my 
questions  convince  me  of  the  innocence  and  candor  of  their 
souls.  4  Oh,  my  lather,'  they  say  to  me,  'how  should  I  dare  do 
that  against  my  God  who  has  called  me  to  his  holy  religion? 
May  my  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  who  died  for  me,  never  suffer 
me  to  fall  into  such  a  sin.'  "^ 

*  Annals. 

f  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  China,  by  Rev.  David  Abeel,  ch.  x.,  p.  234. 
.     \  Lettres,  tome  xvi.,  p.  194. 


90  CHAPTER  II. 


CHINA   PROPER. 

In  China  Proper,  during  the  whole  period  at  which  we  have 
just  glanced,  and  which  we  have  called  the  "second  epoch" 
of  Chinese  missions,  the  same  work  was  in  progress,  with  a 
steady  unvarying  uniformity,  in  spite  of  incessant  and  merci- 
less persecution,  which  assimilates  the  Chinese  missions  to  those 
of  the  primitive  ages.  All  through  the  first  half  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  more  than  five  hundred  adult  converts  were 
annually  made  even  in  Pekin  itself;  and  their  constancy  is 
sufficiently  indicated  by  the  astonishing  fact,  attested  by  Baron 
Von  Haxthausen,  that,  at  this  hour,  there  are  more  than  forty 
thousand  Catholics  in  that  capital,  and  that  still,  full,  of  life 
and  power,  "  their  religion  extends  itself  more  and  more  in  the 
north  of  the  empire."* 

It  is  impossible  to  attribute  this  progress,  accomplished  in  the 
face  of  almost  unexampled  sufferings  and  dangers,  to  any  other 
causes  than  those  which  have  been  regarded  as  the  sole  ade- 
quate explanation  of  similar  triumphs  in  the  early  ages — the 
omnipotence  of  Divine  grace,  the  persuasive  example  which 
the  converts  afforded  to  the  heathen,  and  the  apostolic  character 
of  the  missionaries.  Father  D'Entrecolles  relates,  in  1715,  that 
a  European  missionary  who  visited  his  neophytes  for  the  first 
time  declared,  after  living  among  them,  "They  are  not  ordinary 
Christians;  they  are  models  of  virtue."  Even  the  heathen,  as 
we  shall  see,  confessed  the  same  fact.  Nor  couid  they  be  in- 
sensible to  the  mysterious  heroism  of  which  they  were  coiir 
tinually  witnesses.  D'Entrecolles  mentions  the  example  of  one 
of  his  own  recent  converts,  who  saw  pieces  of  his  flesh  cut  off 
and  given  to  dogs  to  eat,  and  yet  behaved  with  such  patient 
fortitude,  that  even  the  mandarins  desired  the  torture  to  cease,  f 

It  is  also  worthy  of  observation,  and  a  significant  token  of 
the  rare  union  of  mental  and  spiritual  endowments  in  a  large 
number  of  Chinese  missionaries  of  that  epoch,  that  in  the  midst 
of  their  apostolic  labors  they  still  found  time  to  devote  to  the 
interests  of  science.  One  example  deserves  particular  mention. 
Humboldt  used  to  deplore,  only  a  few  years  before  his  death, 
that  the  experiments  in  terrestrial  magnetism,  to  which  he  gave 
so  great  an  impulse,  had  not  been  systematically  conducted  at 
an  earlier  period.  Yet  we  find  Catholic  missionaries,  two  cen- 
turies ago,  registering  their  observations  on  the  magnetic  dip. 

It  is  recorded  of  Colbert,  that  he  one  day  summoned  Father 

*  Etudes  sur  la  Russie,  tome  i.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  441. 
f  Lettres,  tome  xix.,  p.  95. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  91 

de  Fontaney,  afterwards  a  missionary  in  China,  who  found  him 
closeted  with  the  celebrated  Cassini.  The  minister  addressed 
the  Jesuit  in  these  words :  u  The  sciences  do  not  deserve, 
reverend  Father,  that  you  should  take  the  trouble  to  cross  the 
seas,  and  consent  to  live  in  another  world,  far  removed  from 
your  country  and  friends ;  but  since  the  desire  of  converting  the 
heathen,  and  of  gaining  souls  to  Jesus  Christ,  often  induces  your 
Fathers  to  undertake  such  voyages,  I  should  wish  them  to 
profit  by  the  opportunity ;  and  that,  in  moments  when  they  are 
not  wholly  occupied  in  preaching  the  Gospel,  they  should  con- 
duct such  observations  as  may  be  useful  to  us  in  perfecting  the 
arts  and  sciences."*  We  know  how  the  confidence  of  the  great 
minister  was  justified,  and  Europe  still  confesses,  by  the  mouth 
of  its  most  learned  men,  its  obligations  to  the  Society  of  Jesus. 
De  Fontaney  himself,  a  man  of  noble  lineage,  after  professing 
mathematics  for  eight  years  in  a  college  at  Paris,  was  one  of 
six  Fathers  to  whom  their  superior  granted  permission  to  labor 
in  China.  To  him  we  owe  the  relation  of  an  anecdote  which 
deserves  a  place  even  in  this  imperfect  sketch.  A  Tartar 
colonel,  charged  with  an  official  embassy  to  a  distant  part  of 
the  empire,  entreated  Father  de  Fontaney,  whose  disciple  he 
was,  to  admit  him  to  baptism  before  he  set  out  on  his  dangerous 
expedition.  Being  found,  on  examination,  to  be  unable  to  re- 
peat all  the  prayers,  acts  of  faith,  and  other  formularies,  which 
the  missionaries  had  resolved,  for  the  sake  of  precaution,  to 
consider  indispensable,  his  request  was  refused.  "  My  father," 
said  the  disappointed  soldier,  u  do  not  insist  upon  this  condition. 
I  believe  all  the  mysteries  of  religion,  One  God  in  Three  Per- 
sons, that  the  Second  Person  became  Man  for  us  and  suffered 
death  for  our  salvation ;  I  believe  that  they  who  keep  the  Law 
will  be  saved,  and  that  they  who  keep  it  not  will  be  eternally 
damned.  There  is  nothing  to  hinder  my  becoming  a  Chris- 
tian. I  have  only  one  wife,  and  no  wish  ever  to  have  more 
than  one ;  there  are  no  idols  in  my  house,  nor  do  I  adore  any. 
I  adore  the  Lord  of  Heaven  alone,  and  I  wish  to  love  and  serve 
Him  all  my  life."  The  missionary  was  still  inexorable,  and 
counselled  him  to  apply  again  for  baptism  on  his  return  from 
his  expedition.  "  But,  my  father,  if  i  die  on  the  way,  my  soul 
will  be  lost,  for  who  will,  baptize  me  if  I  should  fall  sick  on 
the  way  ?  You  see  that  I  am  prepared,  that  I  believe  all  the 
articles  of  the  Law,  and  that  I  wish  to  keep  it  all  my  life.  I 
have  just  left  the  palace,  and  come  hither  in  all  haste,  to 
beseech  you  to  grant  me  this  favor.  I  have  only  two  hours 
left  to  prepare  for  my  departure,  for  I  must  begin  my  march 

*  Tomo  xvii.,  p.  210. 


92  CHAPTER   II. 

to-night.  Father,  in  the  name  of  God,  refuse  me  not  this 
grace."  To  such  a  prayer  only  one  reply  was  possible.  The 
missionary  yielded,  and  eight  days  after  the  new  Christian 
died  on  his  journey.* 

It  was  the  same  Father  de  Fontaney,  who,  when  he  visited 
Europe  in  after  years,  retained  so  lively  a  recollection  of  kind- 
ness received  from  English  friends,  that  he  wrote  from  London 
to  Pere  La  Chaise,  the  confessor  of  Louis  XIV.,  in  these  words : 
"  I  can  declare  of  the  English  who  reside  in  the  Chinese  ports 
that  their  conduct  does  them  honor." 

A  little  later  we  have  the  evidence  of  Father  Le  Comte,  who 
shall  be  our  last  witness,  and  who  speaks,  like  de  Fontaney,  of 
works  in  which  he  had  a  personal  share,  and  of  events  which 
occurred  under  his  own  eyes:  "Every  thing,"  says  this  well- 
known  missionary,  "is  matter  of  consolation  to  us  in  this 
glorious  employment ;  the  faith  of  the  new  converts,  the  inno- 
cence of  the  old,  the  aptness  of  the  children,  the  devotion  and 
modesty  of  the  women."  From  him  we  learn  also  how  far 
books  were  employed  in  the  instruction  of  the  Chinese.  It  was 
not  indeed  by  such  agency  that  they  expected  to  convert  the 
heathen,  but  they  knew  how  to  employ  it  in  subordination  to 
other  means.  Of  one  Chinese  treatise  written  by  a  Jesuit  mis- 
sionary, his  companions  were  accustomed  to  say,  "  It  has  con- 
verted as  many  pagans  as  there  are  syllables  in  the  book."  It 
would  have  been  irrational  to  have  neglected  such  useful  auxil- 
iaries. "  As  my  visits  are  not  so  frequent  as  I  could  wish," 
writes  Le  Comte,  "I  endeavor  to  supplement  them  by  pious 
books,  with  which,  by  God's  blessing,  China  is  very  well  stored. 
They  have  very  complete  catechisms,  containing  the  whole 
body  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  in  which  the  life,  miracles,  and 
death  of  our  Blessed  Lord,  the  commandments  of  God  and  the 
Church,  are  clearly  explained.  There  are  also  particular  ex- 
positions of  the  Gospels,  treatises  upon  moral  and  Christian 
duties,  solid  controversies  adapted  to  the  capacity  of  all,  prac- 
tices of  piety  for  various  states  and  conditions  of  life,  prayers 
and  instructions  for  the  right  use  of  the  sacraments,  and  a 
course  of  theology  for  the  learned."  What  follows  is  worthy 
of  notice :  "  As  for  the  complete  version  of  the  Bible,  there  are 
such  weighty  reasons  why  it  should  not  presently  be  published, 
that  it  would  seem  only  an  act  of  rash  audacity  to  co  it;  and 
so  much  the  more,  because  there  is  already  a  full  exposition, 
in  various  books,  of  what  is  contained  in  the  Gospels,  and  even 
of  whatsoever  is  most  instructive  in  the  rest  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures."! 

*  Ubi  supra,  p.  317. 
f  Letter  xii.,  p.  391. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  93 

Le  Comte  relates  also,  that  in  his  day  the  Christians,  besides 
assisting  every  morning  at  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  used 
to  "  assemble  twice  a  day  for  public  prayers." 

Father  Francois  Noel  had  noticed,  at  an  earlier  date,  the 
same  habits  of  piety;  that  many  of  the  Christians  travelled 
twenty  or  thirty  miles  every  Sunday  to  hear  Mass,  and  that  on 
Fridays  they  assembled  in  great  numbers  to  practise  devotions 
in  honor  of  the  Passion.  "Their  austerities  and  penances,"  he 
adds,  "would  be  indiscreet,  if  we  were  not  careful  to  moderate 
their  excess."  It  was  by  this  discipline  of  prayer,  meditation, 
and  penance,  that  they  prepared  for  martyrdom,  and  that  so 
many  learned  rather  to  desire  than  to  fear  it. 

Of  the  missionaries  themselves.  Le  Comte  observes  that  they 
had  commonly  only  the  bare  ground  for  their  couch,  and  that 
their  diet  was  so  meagre,  that  "there  is  no  monk  in  Europe 
whose  rule  prescribes  such  a  rigorous  abstinence,"  since  many  of 
them  passed  whole  years  together  "  with  only  rice,  vegetables, 
and  water."  Lastly,  of  the  faithful  he  gives  this  account : 
"  The  ardent  love  which  these  Christians  have  for  Jesus  Christ 
makes  them  devout  in  truth,  and  walk  worthy  of  the  profession 
which  they  have  embraced.  They  continually  repeat  the  fol- 
lowing ejaculation:  'Jesus,  the  Master  of  Heaven,  who  didst 
shed  Thy  blood  for  us ;  Jesus,  who  died  to  save  us !' — for  as 
this  is  the  mystery  in  which  we  most  carefully  instruct  them, 
so  it  is  that  which  they  most  steadfastly  believe." 

Perhaps  we  have  now  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  facts  which 
belong  to  the  two  first  epochs  of  the  Chinese  mission.  The 
second  of  these  periods  was  now  to  be  abruptly  closed,  by  an 
event  of  which  we  shall  better  appreciate  the  formidable  char- 
acter when  we  have  traced  its  sorrowful  results  in  many 
lands. 

What  the  fate  of  the  heathen  world  might  have  been  if  the 
Society  of  Jesus  had  not  been  overthrown,  by  a  vast  conspiracy 
which  united  the  enemies  of  every  throne  and  of  almost  every 
creed  in  Europe,  at  the  moment  when  it  had  reached  the  climax 
of  its  glory  and  usefulness,  when  its  members  were  doing  battle 
in  every  stronghold  of  Satan  over  the  wide  face  of  the  earth, 
and  everywhere  with  success,  it  would  be  idle  now  to  speculate. 
Others,  indeed,  had  been  associated  with  the  Jesuits,  and  not  in 
China  only,  in  that  famous  apostolate  which  lasted  more  than 
two  hundred  years,  which  embraced  every  region  of  the  world, 
and  added  to  the  Church  more  souls  than  the  enemy  had  snatch- 
ed from  her  by  the  great  catastrophe  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
But  if  the  children  of  St.  Francis,  St.  Dominic,  and  St.  Vincent 
have  everywhere  emulated  the  piety,  zeal,  and  valor  of  the  sons 
of  St.  Ignatius,  it  is  to  the  latter  that  men  have  attributed,  in 


94:  CHAPTER   II. 

a  special  manner,  the  success  of  a  work  in  which  they  were  en- 
gaged at  the  same  hour  from  Labrador  to  Patagonia,  and  from 
the  White  Sea  to  the  islands  of  the  Indian  Ocean.  "  People  of 
the  furthest  East,"  exclaimed  Fenelon,  with  accents  of  astonish- 
ment and  admiration,  "your  hour  is  come!  To  whom  do  we 
owe  this  glory  and  benediction  of  our  age?  To  the  Company  of 
Jesus"*  "O  famous  Company,"  said  Boss^et,  before  the  noblest 
audience  in  Christendom,  "  who  bear  not  in  vain  the  Name  of 
Jesus,  and  to  whom  God  has  given,  in  these  last  times,  doctors, 
apostles,  and  evangelists,  that  the  glory  of  His  Gospel  might 
break  forth  in  all  the  universe,  and  even  in  lands  hitherto 
unknown ;  cease  not  to  employ  in  its  service,  in  the  spirit  of 
your  holy  institute,  all  the  resources  of  genius,  eloquence,  refine- 
ment, and  learning. "f  Even  Protestants  have  caught  up  the 
echo  of  these  mighty  voices.  "  A  considerable  portion,"  says 
Sir  George  Staunton,  "  of  the  intercourse  which  actually  sub- 
sists between  China  and  the  nations  of  Europe  owes  its  origin, 
as  is  well  known,  to  the  influence  of  religious  motives ;  and  was 
established  by  the  indefatigable  zeal  and  appropriate  talents 
of  the  early  missionaries  of  the  Catholic  Church."  And  then 
he  adds,  with  a  noble  candor,  that  if  the  Society  had  not 
been  suppressed,  "  it  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  the  most  ancient 
of  the  institutions  upon  which  the  fabric  of  the  Chinese  govern- 
ment is  founded,  or  the  most  deeply -rooted  of  the  prejudices 
and  attachments  by  which  it  continues  to  be  sustained,  could 
have  withstood  their  powerful  and  undermining  influence."  ^ 
"The  Jesuits,"  says  a  later  English  writer,  "at  one  time  bid 
fair  to  convert  both  India  and  China  /  and  if  their  career  had 
not  been  stopped  by  political  events,  would  probably  have 
finally  succeeded. "§  "Every  thing  was  against  the  Jesuits," 
says  the  most  upright  and  illustrious  of  continental  Protestants, 
"  and  yet  nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  a  great  idea  is 
attached  to  their  name,  their  influence,  and  their  history.  Why 
so?  It  is  because  they  knew  what  they  were  doing,  and  what 
they  desired  to  do ;  because  they  had  a  full  and  clear  acquaint- 
ance with  the  principles  upon  which  they  acted,  and  the  aim 
to  which  they  tended ;  that  is  to  say,  they  had  greatness  of 
thought,  and  greatness  of  will."  |  They  had  these,  and  better 
gifts,  or  they  would  never  have  accomplished  even  a  portion  of 
the  great  deeds  which  God  wrought  by  their  hands.  But  we 

*  Sermon  pour  la  Fete  de  I'Epiphanie,  1685. 

\  Sermon  pour  la  Fete  de  la  Circoncision  ;  (Euvres,  tome  iii.,  p.  706. 
|  Laws  of  China,  pref.,  p.  3.    Of.  Lord  Macartney's  Embassy  to  China,  vol.  ii., 
ch.  ii.,  p.  159. 

|  India  as  it  may  be,  by  George  Campbell,  Esq.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  397. 
I  Guizot,  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation,  &c.,  Lect.  xii. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  95 

shall  meet  them  again,  in  many  a  land,  and  find  other  oppor- 
tunities of  reviewing  their  work,  and  of  appreciating  its  true 
character.  Meanwhile,  the  unwilling  decree,  extorted  by 
violence  and  conceded  with  regret, — the  decree  which  a  later 
Pontiff,  himself  a  confessor,  was  destined  to  annul  and  reverse, — 
had  gone  forth  against  them,  and  China  was  robbed  of  her^ 
apostles  just  as  she  was  beginning  to  know  and  obey  their 
voice.  u  Let  us  submit  and  adore,"  said  the  last  superior  of 
the  Jesuits  at  Pekin,  when  the  fatal  edict  was  announced  ;  "  I 
confess,  however,  in  spite  of  the  most  complete  resignation, 
that  my  heart  has  received  an  incurable  wound.  Oh,  my  God, 
how  many  souls  will  now  be  replunged  into  the  darkness  of 
idolatry  !  how  many  will  never  emerge  from  it  !"* 

And  now  the  enemy  had  triumphed,  and  the  clouds,  which 
seemed  about  to  part  asunder,  once  more  fell  in  thick  darkness 
over  the  land  of  China.  Let  us  sorrow  for  a  moment,  if  not 
with  the  banished  apostles,  at  least  with  their  orphaned  flock. 
For  half  a  century  the  Christians  of  China  were  well-nigh 
abandoned  to  themselves.  During  two  whole  generations  many 
neither  saw,  nor  so  much  as  heard  of,  a  minister  of  religion.  A 
few  indeed  remained,  scattered  here  and  there  through  that  wide 
desert ;  but  dismay  had  fallen  upon  them.  The  events  which 
were  shaking  Europe  to  her  foundations  were  felt  even  in 
eastern  Asia.  The  religious  societies,  which  alone  could  supply 
teachers  for  the  heathen,  were  everywhere  destroyed.  The  har- 
vest was  great,  but  there  were  none  to  gather  it  in.f  For  many 
years  silence  reigned- over  the  pagan  world.  Yet,  in  spite  of  a 
trial  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  Christianity,  and  which 
fell  simultaneously  upon  every  region  of  the  earth  ;  in  spite  of 
a  calamity,  immense  and  universal,  which  would  have  utterly 
uprooted  religion  in  many  a  country  of  Europe,  there  was  not  so 
much  as  a  solitary  example  throughout  the  world — such  as  had 
once  been  known  in  North  Africa,  in  Phenicia  and  Bithynia, 
and  the  other  provinces  of  Asia  Minor — of  the  destruction  of 
any  church  which  had  been  founded  by  Jesuits,  Dominicans,  or 
Franciscans,  either  in  Asia  or  America.  All  survived,  by  a 
special  Providence,  this  new  and  unheard-of  catastrophe !  All 
number  at  this  hour,  and  notably  in  China,  a  greater  multitude 
of  Christians  than  existed  before  their  trial  began.  The  Evil 
One  had  bruised  the  heel  of  the  Church,  but  she  has  received 
power  from  God  to  crush  his  head.  And  if  we  marvel  in  secret 
why  he  was  permitted  to  overthrow  for  a  time  the  Company  of 
Jesus,  using  as  his  instruments  all  the  children  of  pride  and 
blasphemy  in  every  kingdom  of  Europe,  it  is  the  last  General 

*  Annals,  vol.  ix.,  p.  310. 

f  De  Guignes,  tome  ii.,  p.  337. 


96  CHAPTER    II. 

of  the  Society  who  explains  for  us  the  mystery  in  his  ency- 
clical letter  to  his  brethren  of  the  27th  of  December,  1839. 
"It  was  permitted  by  God,"  said  Father  Eoothaan,  "in  order 
to  teach  us,  us  above  all  men,  to  have  a  lowly  opinion  of  our- 
selves. It  is  faith  which  instructs  us,  and  experience  also,  that 
God  and  His  Church  have  no  more  need  of  our  help  than  of 
that  of  other  men."*  In  other  words,  the  Company  of  Jesus 
was  a  great  instrument  in  the  hands  of  God,  but  the  Church 
was  a  greater  still. 


THIKD   EPOCH. 

It  is  time  to  speak  of  the  third  and  last  epoch  of  the  Chinese 
missions.  Thus  far  our  tale  has  been  of  men  who  had  passed 
to  their  reward  before  any  of  our  own  generation  had  come  into 
being.  We  are  now  to  tell  of  others,  upon  whose  work  we  have 
looked,  so  to  speak,  with  our  own  eyes ;  who  have  gone  out  in  our 
own  day,  and  from  among  ourselves ;  whose  very  faces  are  still 
familiar  in  many  a  household  of  France,  Italy,  or  Spain ;  with 
some  of  whom  we  have  even  had  the  honor  of  personal  inter- 
course, and  of  whose  hand  we  still  feel  in  memory  the  grateful 
pressure.  Will  they  prove  such  as  their  fathers?  Has  the 
nineteenth  century  power  to  generate  a  new  race  of  apostles 
and  martyrs?  Is  it  in  such  an  age  as  this,  rotten  with  impiety 
and  unbelief,  busy  only  with  schemes  of  material  prosperity, 
which  it  abandons  one  after  another  for  some  new  device, 
equally  futile,  and  soon  to  be  rejected  in  its  turn,  that  men  of 
the  stamp  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Gregory  can  still  be  found? 
Yes ;  the  world  may  change,  but  the  Church  remains  the 
same;  and  therefore  she  continues  to  produce,  and  will  pro- 
duce to  the  end  of  time,  as  Bossuet  speaks,  "  doctors,  apostles, 
and  evangelists."  Let  us  see  how  far  the  apostolic  missiona- 
ries of  our  own  generation  resemble  those  who  have  gone 
before,  and  who  are  awaiting  them  in  heaven. 

In  the  sketch  which  we  are  about  to  present,  and  which  must 
be  limited  to  a  mere  outline  of  the  chief  incidents  of  the  pres- 
ent century,  we  shall  no  longer  be  left  to  the  testimony  of 
Catholic  witnesses.  Heathens  and  Protestants  will  now  assist 
us  in  our  inquiry,  and  throughout  the  remainder  of  these 
volumes  they  will  not  again  leave  us.  Let  us  begin  with  the 
heathen. 

In  1805,  from  which  date  we  will  resume  our  history  of 
missions  in  China,  the  emperor,  Kia-King,  a  savage  and  unre- 

*  Cretineau  Joly,  Histoire  des  Jesuites,  tome  vi.,  p.  311. 


MISSIONS   IN    CHINA.  97 

lenting  persecutor,  who  was  killed  in  1821  by  lightning,  pub- 
lished a  new  edict  against  the  Christians.  The  testimony  of 
this  imperial  witness  has  a  peculiar  value.  He  speaks,  like  the 
high  priest  of  the  Jews,  of  men  whom  he  hated,  but  could  not 
subdue  ;  for,  as  even  Mr.  Gutzlaif  observes,  though  apparently 
with  regret,  he  "  could  not  extirpate  a  sect  which  had  so  many 
ramifications,  and  had  taken  root  in  the  very  heart  of  the  em- 
pire."* Mr.  Gutzlaff  and  his  friends,  as  we  shall  see  presently, 
would  have  willingly  assisted  Kia-King  to  extirpate  the  hated 
"  sect,"  which,  however,  numbers  exactly  five  times  as  many 
members  as  it  did  when  that  monarch  commenced  his  ener- 
getic operations.  Here  is  the  confession  of  Kia-King  in  his 
angry  proclamation :  "  All  who  become  Christians,  whether 
rich  or  poor,  directly  they  embrace  this  religion,  have  such  an 
affection  for  one  another,  that  they  seem  to  be  of  one  lone  and 
one  flesh, ,"f 

In  the  same  year,  as  Sir  George  Staunton  relates,  several 
persons  were  condemned  to  punishment  or  slavery  for  becom- 
ing Christians ;  and  especially  one,  an  Italian  missionary,  "  be- 
cause he  has  not  only,"  says  the  official  decree,  "  worked  on 
the  minds  of  the  simple  peasantry  and  women,  but  even  many 
of  our  Tartar  subjects" — the  most  vigorous  and  influential  of 
the  Chinese  races — "have  been  persuaded  to  believe  and  con- 
form to  his  religion ;  and  it  appears  that  no  less  than  thirty- 
one  books  upon  the  European  religion  have  been  printed  in 
Chinese  characters.''^ 

Once  more.  In  1826,  a  petition  was  presented  by  the  man- 
darins to  the  king  of  Cochin-China,  praying  him  to  adopt  new 
measures  "  to  prohibit  this  perverse  religion,"  on  these  grounds : 
"  Since  this  religion  has  penetrated  into  the  kingdom,  thousands 
of  persons  profess  it  in  all  our  provinces  ;  and  they  who  are 
imbued  with  this  doctrine  are  animated  with  a  zeal  which 
transports  them  out  of  themselves,  and  makes  them  run  about 
hither  and  thither  like  madmen.  The  followers  of  this  law 
multiply  every  day;  they  are  continually  building  new 
churches;  their  abominations  are  diffused  in  every  direction, 
and  there  is  no  place  which  is  not  infected  by  them."§  The  re- 
port of  these  alarmed  mandarins  is  confirmed  at  the  same  Hate 
by  an  English  Protestant,  who  says,  "  Christianity  makes  great 
progress  in  Tong-King.  In  June,  1821,  a  whole  district  sent 
deputies  to  ask  to  be  instructed  in  the  Christian  faith."| 

*  China  Opened,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  365. 
f  Annales,  tome  i.,  p.  153.  ' 
\  Laws  of  China,  app.,  p.  533. 
§  Armales,  tome  iii.,  p.  469. 
J  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  298. 
8 


98  CHAPTER  II. 

But  the  heathen  were  not  content  with  recording  the  num- 
bers of  the  Christians ;  their  virtues  also  extorted  their  unwill- 
ing applause.  "The  Christian  religion,"  said  a  mandarin  of 
the  district  of  Te-Yang,  speaking  from  his  tribunal,  "is  diffi- 
cult and  austere,  and  obliges  men  to  great  sacrifices," — he  was 
a  good  judge  on  this  point,  since  he  was  at  that  moment  pass- 
ing sentence  on  Christians; — "yet  if  all  men  could  agree  to 
embrace  this  religion,  and  to  follow  its  laws  and  precepts,  cer- 
tainly we  should  have  no  need  of  watch-dogs  to  guard  our 
houses,  or  to  frighten  away  robbers ;  it  would  not  even  be  ne- 
cessary to  shut  our  doors  during  the  night  as  a  precaution 
against  evil  men,  because  all  men  would  then  be  upright  and 
conscientious."*  Yet  this  "  whited  wall,"  in  the  very  act  of 
celebrating  their  virtues,  could  command  his  satellites,  like 
Ananias  of  old  when  St.  Paul  pleaded  his  "  good  conscience 
before  God,"  to  smite  them  on  the  mouth. 

We  have  heard,  and  shall  hear  again,  what  the  heathen  said 
of  the  Christians ;  let  us  confirm  their  report  by  the  testimony 
of  witnesses  of  another  order,  but  at  least  equally  hostile.  In 
the  early  part  of  the  present  century,  Timkowski  was  sent  by 
the  Russian  government  to  Pekin,  and  from  him  we  derive  the 
following  information.  In  the  year  1805,  he  says,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  discovery  of  a  map  of  China,  executed  by  the 
Jesuits,  on  which  the  sites  of  all  the  Catholic  missions  were 
marked,  "  a  fresh  persecution  was  commenced  against  the 
Christians.  They  endeavored  to  oblige  them  to  trample  upon 
the  Cross,  and  to  abjure  their  errors;  they  who  refused  were 
threatened  with  death.  At  Pekin  many  thousand  persons  were 
discovered,  who  had  embraced  the  Christian  religion,  even 
among  the  members  of  the  imperial  family  and  mandarins." 
New  tortures,  Mr.  Timkowski  says,  were  invented  expressly  for 
this  occasion.  "  They  made  incisions  in  the  soles  of  their  feet, 
tilled  the  wound  with  horse-hair,  finely  cut,  then  closed  it  with 
a  plaster.  It  is  affirmed  that  such  tortures  had  never  before 
been  practised  in  China.  Several  of  these  miserable  beings, 
chiefly  Chinese  soldiers,  lost  their  courage  during  these  tor- 
tures, but  the  majority  remained  faithful  to  their  religion."f 

We  are  approaching  our  own  day,  yet  we  still  find  the  Chi- 
nese Christians,  by  the  confession  of  an  enemy,  as  conspic- 
uous for  constancy  and  fortitude  as  their  fathers  had  been 
two  centuries  earlier.  The  persecution  of  1805  died  out  in 
Pekin,  for  a  reason  which  is  worthy  of  notice.  u  In  the 
sequel,"  Timkowski  relates,  "the  president  of  the  criminal 

*  Nouvdles  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  ii.,  p.  488.  G rosier,  tome  iv.,  ch,  ix., 
p.  456. 

f  Travels,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  365. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  99 

tribunal,  having  learned  that  in  his  own  house  nearly  all  his 
relations  and  servants  were  Christians ',  became  less  rigorous  in 
his  examinations,  and  more  indulgent  towards  the  Christians." 

Dr.  Wells  Williams,  a  Protestant  agent  in  China,  who  dis- 
plays a  far  deeper  hatred  of  these  generous  confessors  and 
martyrs  than  of  their  pagan  oppressors,  and  whose  deplorable 
language  shall  be  quoted  hereafter,  makes  the  following  re- 
luctant admissions:  "Many  of  their  converts  exhibited  the 
greatest  constancy  in  their  profession,  suffering  persecution, 
torture,  imprisonment,  banishment,  and  death,  rather  than  deny 
their  faith ;  though  every  inducement  of  prevarication  and 
mental  reservation  was  held  out  to  them  by  the  magistrates,  in 
order  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  proceeding  to  extreme  measures, 
If  suffering  the  loss  of  all  things  is  an  evidence  of  piety,  many 
of  them  have  proved  their  title  to  it  in  many  ways."*  No  man, 
as  far  as  we  know,  has  hitherto  suggested  any  better  title,  nor 
need  these  Chinese  Catholics  aspire  to  a  nobler  distinction  than 
that  which  they  share,  alone  amongst  modern  Christians,  with 
the  disciples  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul. 

The  opening  of  the  third  epoch  of  Chinese  missions  reveals, 
then,  the  same  phenomena  with  which  the  earlier  periods  have 
made  us  familiar.  A  new  generation  both  of  teachers  and 
disciples  had  now  commenced  their  warfare,  yet  resembling  so 
exactly,  in  all  points,  those  who  had  gone  before,  that  in  pur- 
suing their  history  we  shall  seem  to  be  still  (Conversing  with 
the  children  of  Kicci  and  Schaal,  of  Yerbiest  and  Parennin,  of 
Noel  and  Fontaney.  The  combatants  are  new,  but  their  virtues 
and  graces  are  still  the  same. 

On  the  14th  of  September,  1815,  at  which  date  Protestant 
emissaries,  whose  mode  of  life  their  associates  will  presently 
describe  to  us,  had  begun  to  enter  the  Chinese  seaports — Bishop 
Dufresse,  after  an  apostolate  of  thirty-nine  years,  the  whole  of 
which  had  been  one  long  martyrdom,  was  led  to  the  scaffold 
with  an  escort  of  thirty-two  Chinese  confessors.  "  During  the 
administration  of  this  true  apostle  of  the  Christian  doctrine," 
says  Mr.  Montgomery  Martin,  in  spite  of  incurable  prejudices, 
"  there  were  frequently  fifteen  hundred  adult  baptisms  annu- 
ally.'^ And  now,  after  a  .whole  life  of  patient  toil  and  apos- 
tolic purity,  he  was  ascending,  in  the  company  of  thirty-two  of 
liis  children,  the  Calvary  of  martyrs. 

Throughout  the  five  years  which  followed,  Chinese  priests 
and  laymen,  devout  and  valiant  as  their  French,  or  Spanish, 
or  Italian  models,  were  continually  martyred,  and  died,  as  St. 

*  The  Middle  Kingdom,  ubi  supra, 
f  China,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  485. 


100  CHAPTER    II. 

Polycarp  or  St.  Cyprian  died,  calm,  constant,  and  exulting. 
When  Paul  Tuy,  one  of  these  native  priests,  was  informed  by 
the  imperial  officers  that  he  was  condemned  to  death,  he1  con- 
tented himself  with  asking,  with  perfect  composure,  if  it  was 
really  true ;  and  when  assured  that  nothing  was  more  certain, 
he  calmly  replied,  "  I  should  never  have  ventured  to  hope  for 
so  signal  a  grace."* 

It  was  in  the  same  year,  1818,  that  many  Christians  were 
exiled  to  the  wastes  of  Tartary ;  and  when,  in  1823,  after  five 
years  of  suffering,  pardon  was  offered  to  all  who  would  renounce 
the  Christian  religion,  five  accepted  the  offer  which  more  than 
two  hundred  steadfastly  refused.  In  another  place,  out  of  a 
band  who  had  endured  the  torture  of  the  cangue  for  ten  years, 
an  existence  more  intolerable  than  that  of  the  most  abject 
tenant  of  a  Russian  or  a  Mahometan  prison,  only  one  accepted 
the  same  condition,  though  more  than  half  of  the  original  num- 
ber had  died  under  the  suffering.  Even  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians rarely  sustained  such  a  trial  as  this. 

And  they  were  everywhere  and  always  the  same.  In  1815, 
a  girl  of  twenty  was  asked  by  a  heathen  judge,  "  How  can  you 
worship  a  God  whom  you  do  not  see  ?"  "With  ready  wit  she 
answered,  "You  yourself  honor  the  emperor  almost  like  a  godr 
yet  you  do  not  see  him  ;"  a  reply  which  excited  the  admiration 
of  the  pagan,  and  appears  to  have  saved  her  life.  Old  age  was 
as  prompt  and  valiant  as  youth.  Father  Charrier  tells  of  one, 
who  had  lived  more  than  fourscore  years,  who  made  this 
answer  before  the  tribunal:  "Before  I  renounce  my  God  to 
adore  yours,  I  must  see  that  they  are  better  than  mine.  At  my 
age  one  should  not  do  things  lightly.  In  the  first  place,  then, 
what  are  your  gods  ?  Pieces  of  wood  without  life.  If  I  cut 
down  a  tree  in  my  field,  I  can,  in  the  course  of  a  single  day, 
make  a  dozen  of  them."f  He  also  was  released. 

Sometimes  it  was  a  sorer  trial  than  loss  of  liberty  or  dislocations 
of  limb  which  was  proposed  to  these  Asiatic  Christians.  They 
were  bidden  to  that  direst  spectacle  which  human  nature  can 
contemplate,  the  agony  of  their  own  children.  This  also  they 
bore  as  firmly  as  the  saints  of  old.  An  aged  father,  himself  a 
confessor,  seeing  his  son  gashed  with  wounds,  but  rejoicing  by 
faith  that  his  child  should  be  destined  to  wear  the  martyr's 
crown,  exclaimed,  "  Let  them  scourge  yoii,  my  son ;  if  they 
kill  you,  heaven  will  presently  be  yours."  At  other  times  it 
was  children  who  consoled  and  exhorted  their  parents.  Surely 
Pins  YI1.  had  reason  to  say,  when  such  cases  were  reported  to 
him,  in  which  the  superhuman  is  revealed  to  all  but  the  wilfully 

*  Annales,  tome  vii.,  p.  431. 
f  lUd.,  p.  482. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  101 

blind, "  It  is  like  a  passage  from  the  annals  of  the  primitive 
Church." 

The  missionaries,  both  European  and  native,  led  their  dis- 
ciples in  the  combats  for  which  they  had  so  effectually  prepared 
them.  In  1816,  on  the  13th  of  February,  Father  John  de 
Triora,  a  Franciscan,  was  strangled.  Four  native  Chinese  priests 
were  also  martyred  in  succession.  A  fifth  died  in  prison  of  his 
tortures,  as  well  as  twenty  laymen,  all  in  the  single  province  of 
Su-tchuen  ;  in  which,  nevertheless,  there  are  at  this  day  nearly 
as  many  Catholics  as  there  were  in  1805  in  the  whole  empire  of 
China.  Such  are  the  fruits  of  martyrdom.  In  the  very  midst 
of  these  events,  which  were  now  of  almost  daily  occurrence,  a 
single  priest,  Father  Masson,  could  report,  that  in  one  year,  in 
his  own  mission,  he  had  baptized  one  thousand  and  six  adults, 
and  given  seventy-nine  thousand  communions.'* 

The  same  work  was  in  progress,  at  the  same  hour,  in  every 
other  province.  Thus  in  Tong-King  and  Cochin-China,  in  spite, 
or  rather  because,  of  the  incessant  persecution,  in  the  course  of 
the  single  year  1820,  there  were  nearly  sixteen  thousand  bap- 
tisms. It  is  true,  as  we  learn  from  the  missionaries,  that  not  all 
continued  steadfast.  Thus  in  1821,  in  the  province  of  Su-tchuen, 
"  some  of  our  Christians,"  they  report,  "  had  the  cowardice  to 
apostatize;  but  the  great  majority  have  preferred  to  endure 
every  kind  of  evil  treatment  rather  than  renounce  the  faith." 
And  even  the  few  who  failed,  through  human  infirmity,  in  the 
hour  of  trial,  commonly  implored  reconciliation.  Father  Masson 
relates  that  some  who  had  yielded  under  torture  pleaded  the 
example  of  St.  Peter,  when  they  asked  to  be  restored,  u  whom  our 
Lord  pardoned  in  spite  of  his  fall."  It  is  to  be  noted  also,  that 
the  pagan  Chinese,  who  generally  manifested  contempt  for  the 
unhappy  apostates,  did  not  conceal  their  respect  for  their  more 
courageous  brethren.  Bishop  Fontana  says  that  the  viceroy  of 
Su-tchuen,  a  near  kinsman  of  the  emperor,  having  threatened 
some  recent  converts  with  death,  they  answered  with  one  accord, 
u  We  will  willingly  suffer  death  for  our  religion;"  upon  which, 
rising  up  from  his  seat,  and  pointing  them  out  with  his  finger  to 
the  mandarins,  he  said,  "  These  are  indeed  true  Christians ;  they 
truly  profess  the  religion  of  the  Lord  of  Heaven."  Then,  turning 
to  the  officious  mandarin  who  had  caused  them  to  be  arrested,  he 
said,  u  Why  have  you  brought  me  these  men,  who  are  guilty  of 
no  crime  but  the  desire  of  dying  for  their  religion  ?"  In  spite 
of  these  fine  words,  they  were  all  banished  for  life  to  the  deserts 
of  Tartary.f 

Yet  the  malignity  of  these  judgments  only  provoked  fresh  con- 

*  Tome  x.,  p.  261. 
f  P.  250. 


102  CHAPTER   II. 

versions.  In  Su-tchuen,  thus  incessantly  scourged  and  afflicted, 
there  were  nearly  two  thousand  adult  converts  in  1824 ;  in  Tong- 
King,  where  the  condition  of  the  Christians  was  still  more  insup- 
portable, there  were,  in  1825,  eighty-three  native  priests  and 
more  than  three  hundred  ecclesiastical  students.  Change  the 
names  and  the  dates,  and  you  may  believe  that  you  are  reading 
the  history  of  Christianity  in  Smyrna,  Lyons,  or  Corinth. 

It  is  neither  possible  nor  expedient  to  trace  all  the  details  of 
this  astonishing  warfare,  in  which  men  seem  to  display  the 
qualities  of  angels,  and  which  are  rather  subjects  for  meditation 
than  for  narrative.  Yet  we  must  try,  before  we  pursue  the  his- 
tory to  our  own  day,  to  form  a  distinct  notion  of  the  actual  daily 
condition,  if  not  of  the  faithful,  at  least  of  their  teachers  and 
guides.  A  few  facts  will  serve  to  illustrate  it. 

Bishop  Fontana,  Yicar  Apostolic  of  Su-tchuen,  was  in  such 
extreme  indigence,  that  he  could  not  even  afford  to  buy  vest- 
ments for  his  clergy,  who  were  compelled  to  celebrate  the  Divine 
Mysteries  in  such  robes  as  were  never  seen  in  Europe.  His 
colleague,  in  exile  at  Pulo  Penang,  in  1824,  was  "  obliged  to  sell 
his  pocket-handkerchiefs,  and  other  little  effects,"  to  obtain  food. 
And  so  universal  was  this  destitution,  that  when  a  new  mis- 
sionary arrived  in  Cochin-China,  and  presented  himself  to  the 
bishop,  he  would  exclaim,  "  Oh,  my  Lord,  the  fowls  in  France 
are  better  lodged  than  you  !"  Monseigneur  Florens,  bishop  of 
Sozopolis,  also  sold  his  humble  effects,  to  buy  rice  for  the  poor 
Chinese ;  and  died  at  last,  venerated  even  by  the  heathen  for 
his  gentleness  and  charity,  after  an  apostolate  of  forty-seven 
years.  His  successor  found  his  property  to  consist  of  a  hair 
shirt  and  two  disciplines.  The  wealth  of  St.  Paul  was  probably 
of  the  same  kind,  and  not  more  abundant. 

The  clergy,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  were  as  poor  as  their 
bishops, — poorer  they  could  not  be.  Father  Masson,  writing 
from  Tong-King  to  his  friend  the  mayor  of  Luneville,  says,  "I 
possess  nothing  beyond  the  circumference  of  my  own  body,  yet 
it  seems  to  me  that  I  am  as  happy  as  it  is  possible  to  be  in  this 
world."  Father  Gleyo  came  out  of  prison,  after  eight  years  of 
close  bondage,  and  then  started  immediately,  as  if  he  had 
suffered  nothing,  to  evangelize  "  a  part  of  the  country  hitherto 
unknown,"  possessing  not  a  farthing,  and  his  whole  baggage 
consisting  of  a  single  shirt,  a  pair  of  drawers,  and  a  pair  of 
stockings."*  The  common  nourishment  of  the  missionaries  in 
the  interior,  with  the  exception  probably  of  those  who  were  in 
great  cities,  seems  to  have  been  vegetables,  and  a  sort  of  cheese 
made  of  beans.  Multitudes  of  Christians,  especially  in  Cochin- 
China,  driven  from  their  homes,  and  unable  to  return  without 
*  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  xxvi.,  p.  407. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  103 

encountering  certain  death,  died  of  starvation.     We  shall  hear 

Sresently,  on  Protestant  authority,  of  fourteen  hundred  Cochin- 
hinese  exiles  in  one  place.  "They  receive  the  Sacrament  of 
Extreme  Unction,"  writes  one  who  shared  their  sufferings, 
"  when  they  have  nothing  more  left  to  eat,  and  then  calmly 
await  the  arrival  of  death.  I  have  sometimes  given  Extreme 
Unction  to  five  or  six  at  a  time.  I  cannot  yet  habituate  myself 
to  this  terrible  and  heart-rending  spectacle."* 

Yet  these  men,  full  of  tender  solicitude  for  the  trials  of  their 
disciples,  were  indifferent  only  to  their  own.  Bishop  Tabert, 
one  of  the  Vicars  Apostolic  in  Cochin-China,  to  whose  pre- 
decessor Louis  XVI.  had  given  some  ecclesiastical  vestments, 
writing  just  as  a  fresh  burst  of  persecution  had  died  away,  says 
pleasantly,  "  They  were  old  and  worn  out,  but  they  were  the 
best  I  had,  and  I  kept  them  for  the  greatest  solemnities.  Now 
I  have  lost  every  thing.  I  have  only  two  poor  chasubles,  of 
which  one  is  in  strips,  and  the  other  patched  with  linen.  What 
a  bishop  !"f  It  was  this  prelate  who,  when  banished  for  a  time 
from  Cochin-China,  occupied  his  forced  leisure  in  composing  a 
"  Latin  and  Annamite  Dictionary,"  in  two  quarto  volumes,  a 
grammar,  and  other  works,  "  very  superior,"  as  Mohl  reported 
to  the  Asiatic  Society  of  France,  "  to  any  thing  which  we  be- 
fore possessed.";}: 

Another  Chinese  bishop,  writing  at  the  same  date,  "  from  the 
depths  of  a  cavern  lighted  by  a  wretched  lamp,  and  hunted  by 
police  commissioned  to  arrest  him  for  capital  punishment,"  says, 
"  I  have  left  the  cleft  of  the  rock  in  which  I  was  stationed ;  this 
is  the  sixth  cavern  which,  within  a  few  months,  has  served  as 
an  asylum  to  me  in  my  seventy-fifth  year."§ 

In  1834,  for  lapse  of  time  brought  no  change  in  their  con- 
dition, the  Abbe  Retord,  afterwards  bishop  and  confessor,  re- 
ceived a  secret  dispatch  from  one  of  his  colleagues,  which  an- 
nounced in  these  words  his  actual  position:  "I  am  concealed 
in  a  hole,  four  feet  and  a  half  in  width  and  nine  in  length,  in- 
accessible to  any  ray  of  light.  The  silence  is  broken  only  by 
the  hum  of  mosquitoes,  and  the  gambols  of  rats,  who  show  no 
respect  for  my  presence.  For  thirty-four  hours  my  retreat  was 
surrounded  by  seventy  soldiers,  and  for  eighteen  I  remained 
without  motion.  I  confess  that  at  the  beginning  such  a  life  ap- 
peared to  ine  tedious."  The  Abbe  Marette,  who  was  hunted 
in  the  same  manner,  and  subsequently  martyred,  says:  "  I  was 
not  without  apprehension,  you  may  suppose,  crouched  between 

*  Annales,  tome  ix.,  p.  61. 

f  Tome  vii.,  p.  535. 

I  Rapports  f aits  d  la  Societe  Asiatique,  tome  ii.,  p.  51. 

§  Annals,  vol.  x.,  p.  9. 


104  CHAPTER   II. 

two  walls.  I  recommended  myself  to  all  the  saints,  and  in 
particular  to  my  companion,  so  lately  martyred,  whose  clothes, 
covered  with  his  blood,  I  had  with  me  in  my  hiding-place."* 

Perhaps  these  facts  afford  a  sufficiently  clear  idea  of  the  daily 
life  of  the  missionaries.  That  men  of  our  own  generation  should 
cheerfully  support  such  an  existence  during  twenty,  thirty,  or 
forty  years ;  that  they  should  accept  a  life  of  crucifixion,  and 
even  embrace  it  by  a  deliberate  election  ;  that  they  should 
divorce  themselves  forever,  and  without  repining,  from  dearly 
loved  kinsmen  and  friends — like  Father  Dollieres,  who  had  re- 
ceived no  tidings  from  home  during  twenty  years,  and  in  one 
letter  heard  of  the  death  of  all  his  relations — this  is  a  mystery 
to  which  religion  alone  supplies  the  clue.  "  Behold,"  said  the 
chief  of  the  Apostles  to  his  Master,  "  we  have  left  all  things, 
and  have  followed  Thee ;  what  therefore  shall  we  have?"  And 
the  answer  to  him,  and  to  all  such  as  him,  was  this :  "  Amen  I 
say  to  you,  that  you  who  have  followed  Me,  in  the  regenera- 
tion, when  the  Son  of  Man  shall  sit  on  the  throne  of  His  majes- 
ty, you  also  shall  sit  on  twelve  thrones,  judging  the  twelve  tribes 
of  Israel.  And  every  one  that  hath  left  house  or  brethren  .  . 
for  My  name's  sake,  shall  receive  an  hundred-fold,  and  shall 
possess  life  everlasting."f 

The  promise  has  been  fulfilled,  in  all  ages  and  in  all  lands, 
and  nowhere  more  conspicuously  than  in  the  land  of  China, 
and  in  the  nineteenth  century.  When  Father  Masson,  one  of 
this  apostolic  company,  of  whom  we  have  heard  in  these  pages, 
was  asked  by  a  priest  in  Europe,  who  had  thoughts  of  entering 
the  Chinese  mission,  what  special  difficulties  and  spiritual  trials 
he  might  expect  to  encounter,  the  missionary  gave  this  sublime 
and  memorable  answer :  "  As  respects  the  peculiar  temptations 
and  spiritual  troubles  to  which  one  is  most  exposed  in  this 
manner  of  life,  it  is  happily  impossible  for  me  to  give  you  any 
information,  since  I  have  always  found  myself  in  a  state  of  joy, 
and  have  observed  the  same  thing  in  all  my  colleagues."  "  You 
wish  to  know,"  writes  another,  "what  troubles  I  endure.  I 
have  none.  Or  rather,  I  experience  the  sweetest  consolations 
in  seeing  the  great  number  of  conversions  which,  through  God's 
grace,  are  daily  wrought  under  my  eyes.  Last  year  we  baptized 
more  than  twelve  hundred  adults.  Praise  be  to  Jesus !"  If 
these  men,  and  a  thousand  like  them,  were  doing  the  same 
work  as  St.  Peter  or  St.  Paul,  from  the  same  motive,  and  in 
the  same  way,  why  should  it  appear  strange  if  they  received 
the  same  consolations  ?  , 

*  Vol.  i.,  p.  120. 
f  Matt.  xix.  27-29. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  105 

The  primitive  missionaries  were  aided,  as  we  learn  from 
many  places  of  Holy  Scripture,  by  miraculous  events.  They 
abound  equally  in  the  annals  of  modern  missions  ;  but  we  reserve 
to  a  later  period  of  our  history  the  fuller  consideration  of  this 
subject.  "  If  our  churches,"  says  the  Bishop  of  Isauropolis,  in 
1830,  "  are  only  covered  with  thatch,  they  receive  nevertheless 
the  visits  of  heavenly  spirits."  Pie  then  alludes  to  choirs  of 
angels  being  heard,  when  no  one  could  be  seen,  and  adds,  "but 
I  cannot  venture  to  speak  of  these  things,  because  the  temper 
of  men's  minds  in  France  would  not  endure  them."* 

Frequent  miracles,  as  any  one  familiar  with  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  would  anticipate,  marked  the  whole  course  of  the 
Catholic  apostolate  in  China.  Many  are  rec'orded,  or  referred 
to,  but  always  as  events  which  were  too  probable  to  excite 
astonishment,  or  to  need  comment,  in  the  Lett/res  JEdijiantes, 
and  the  Annales  de  la  Propagation  de  la  Foi.  One  of  the 
missionaries,  who  wras  himself  condemned  to  death,  but  deliv- 
ered, records,  among  other  miracles,  the  raising  a  dead  man  to 
life.f  The  well-known  apparition,  on  various  occasions,  of 
fiery  crosses  in  the  heavens,  which  were  seen  all  over  China  by 
thousands  of  pagans,  and  of  which  drawings  were  published, 
seems  to  defy  cavil.  But  we  shall  find  hereafter  a  more  con- 
venient occasion  for  the  examination  of  this  subject. 

And  now  that  we  have  perhaps  a  sufficiently  distinct  idea  of 
the  men  who  labor  at  this  moment  in  China,  and  of  their 
manner  of  life,  let  us  terminate  this  sketch  by  a  brief  account  of 
some  of  the  principal  incidents  of  their  apostolic  warfare  within 
the  years  of  our  own  passage  through  the  world,  from  1830  to 
1860.  It  is  not  of  the  dead  only  that  we  are  now  to  speak,  but 
of  some  also  who  are  still  living,  and  from  whose  works  we  shall 
be  able  to  judge  whether  the  age  of  apostles  is  past. 

In  1831,  the  young  Deschavanes,  worn  out  by  fatigue  and 
privations  at  the  age  of  twenty-eight,  died  at  his  post,  refusing 
to  seek  health  in  Europe ;  and  in  the  same  year,  that  we  may 
mark  its  course  by  a  single  fact,  in  spite  of  incessant  persecu- 
tion, and  as  it  were  under  the  very  eye  of  the  emperor,  nine 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  baptisms  were  administered  in  the 
city  of  Pekin. 

In  the  renewed  persecution  of  1832,  which  raged  throughout 
the  northern  and  central  provinces,  the  fortitude  of  the  Christians 
wras  so  universal,  that  all,  with  the  exception  of  a  solitary  indi- 
vidual, declared  amid  their  tortures,  that  "they  would  die 
rather  than  renounce  their  religion."  The  emperor  himself  said, 

*  Annales,  tome  v.,  p.  391. 

f  Diners  Voyages  de  la  Chine,  cli.  xxii.,  p.  149. 


106  CHAPTER   IT. 

in  one  of  those  singular  edicts  of  wh'ch  we  have  seen  other 
examples,  that  "the  Christians  were  not  guilty  of  any  crime; 
but  that  which  rendered  them  without  excuse  in  his  eyes,  was, 
that  every  one  of  them,  even  to  a  blind  old  woman,  despised 
his  authority,  in  order  to  obey  a  European."* 

In  1833,  throughout  the  whole  of  China  Proper,  except  only 
some  of  the  maritime  districts  in  which  the  Christians  were  so 
numerous  that  the  mandarins  were  unwilling  to  disturb  them, 
the  same  events  recurred;  but  it  was  perhaps  in  Cochin-China 
that  the  martyrs  displayed  most  conspicuously,  during  this  year 
of  suffering  and  trial,  those  superhuman  qualities  which  all 
Christians  have  agreed  to  admire  in  the  annals  of  the  primitive 
confessors.  We  have  only  space  for  a  few  characteristic  exam- 
ples. It  was  in  1833  that  the  Abbe  Francois  Isidore  Gagelin, 
one  of  those  generous  priests  of  whom  modern  France  has  pro- 
duced so  many,  terminated  his  apostolic  course.  For  the  nar- 
rative of  his  martyrdom  we  are  indebted  to  his  friend  the 
Abbe  Delarnotte,  himself  afterwards  a  martyr,  who  was  almost 
an  eye-witness  of  every  detail  which  he  recounts. 

The  Abbe  Gagelin  had  been  long  in  prison,  uncertain  what 
lot  should  befall  him,  together  with  his  colleagues,  Father 
Jaccard  and  Father  Odorico.  They  were  confined  in  separate 
dungeons ;  but  from  the  23d  of  August  to  the  llth  of  October, 
the  two  latter,  by  the  connivance  of  their  guards,  had  been 
allowed  to  visit  him  twice  a  week.  On  the  llth  of  that  month 
Father  Jaccard,  who  had  received  information  of  what  was 
coming,  wrote  a  letter  to  his  brother  in  bonds,  which  contained 
the  following  words:  "I  think  I  ought  to  tell  you,  happy 
brother,  that  you  are  condemned  to  death."  The  next  morning 
the  Abbe  Gagelin  replied,  "I  recommend  myself  to  your  prayers, 
and  to  those  of  Father  Odorico,  as  wrell  as  of  M.  Delamotte ;"  but 
still  hesitating  to  believe  that  he  was  destined  to  so  great  an 
honor,  he  modestly  suggested,  that  perhaps  he  would  only  be 
sentenced  to  exile.  The  letters  continued  to  pass  to  and  fro 
between  these  "  prisoners  of  Jesus  Christ,"  letters  so  full  of  simple 
dignity  and  apostolic  courage,  that  even  a  Protestant  writer  re- 
marks of  this  correspondence:  "It  was  worthy  of  a  man  who 
had  lived  well,  and  was  about  to  die  well."f  On  the  evening 
of  the  13th,  Father  Jaccard,  who  had  now  obtained  certain 
intelligence,  wrote  to  him,  "  Your  sentence  is  pronounced  ir- 
revocably, and  so,  behold  you  a  martyr !" 

All  doubt  about  the  future  being  at  length  definitively 
removed,  Father  Gagelin  replied  as  follows :  "  Sir,  and  dearest 


*  Annales,  tome  vi.,  p.  487. 

f  Chinese  Repository,  vol.  viii.,  p.  609. 


MISSIONS   IN    CHINA.  107 

colleague,  the  tidings  which  you  announce  to  me,  that  I  am  ir- 
revocably sentenced  to  death,  fill  my  inmost  heart  with  joy. 
Lcetatus  sum  in  his  quce  dicta  sunt  mihi  •  in  domum  Domini 
ibimus.  The  grace  of  martyrdom,  of  which  I  am  most  un- 
worthy, has  been  from  my  earliest  childhood  the  object  of  my 
most  ardent  desire.  I  have  specially  solicited  it  every  time  1 
elevated  the  Precious  JBlood  in  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  Mass. 
In  a  little  while,  then,  I  am  going  to  appear  before  my  Judge ; 
to  render  Plim  an  account  of  my  offences,  of  the  good  which  I 
have  omitted  to  do,  and  even  of  that  which  I  have  done." 
After  some  simple  and  touching  reflections,  and  a  few  words  of 
farewell  addressed  to  his  family  and  friends  in  France,  he  con- 
tinues :  "  The  sight  of  my  good  Jesus  crucified  consoles  me  in 
any  bitterness  which  may  accompany  my  death  ;  my  whole 
ambition  is  to  depart  quickly  from  this  body  of  sin,  to  be 
united  to  Jesus  Christ  in  a  blessed  eternity.  Oupio  dissolvi  et 
esse  cum  Christo.  I  have  only  one  more  consolation  to  desire, 
that  of  seeing  you  and  Father  Odorico  for  the  last  time." 

This  happiness  was  to  be  denied  him,  though  the  three  mis- 
sionaries were  before  long  to  be  reunited  in  heaven.  On  the 
16th,  Father  Jaccard,  who  now  addresses  him  as  "venerated 
colleague,"  and  "  dear  martyr  of  Jesus  Christ,"  after  telling 
him  that  all  hope  of  their  obtaining  permission  to  see  him  is 
gone,  continues  thus:  a Father  Odorico  and  myself  cease  not 
to  speak  of  your  happiness.  He  is  radiant  with  joy,  and 
would  fain  share  your  lot.  I  confess  that  I  should  be  almost 
sorry  if  the  king  released  you,  now  that  you  are  so  near  the 
moment  which  will  give  you  the  palm  of  martyrdom,  and  ad- 
mission into  heaven.  Pardon  me,  dear  brother,  all  the  scan- 
dals which  I  have  caused  you,  and  all  the  uneasiness  which  I 
may  at  any  time  have  occasioned  you." 

On  the  17th,  at  seven  in  the  morning,  the  happy  victim  was 
led  out  of  prison  by  a  band  of  soldiers,  two  mandarins  riding 
in  the  rear  of  the  procession.  The  pagan  crowd,  filled  with 
admiration  at  his  patient  composure,  exclaimed,  "  Why  should 
an  innocent  and  worthy  man  like  this  be  put  to  death?  Who 
ever  saw  any  one  go  to  death  with  so  little  emotion  ?"  Shortly 
after,  the  martyr  had  won  his  crown.* 

Fathers  Jaccard  and  Odorico,  his  friends  and  fellow-laborers, 
were  both  sentenced  to  exile,  with  secret  orders  to  the  mandarins 
to  starve  them  to  death.  The  injunction,  apparently  through 
a  motive  of  benevolence,  was  disobeyed.  The  latter  died  in 
prison  in  1834,  when  on  the  point  of  being  strangled.  Four 

*  Vie  de  M.  I' Abbe  Gagelin,  Mission  air e  Apostolique  et  Martyr,  par  1'Abbe 
Jacquenet  (Paris,  1850).  He  was  declared  "  Venerable"  in  1840  by  Gregory 
XVI.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  458. 


108  CHAPTER  .II. 

years  later,  on  the  21st  of  September,  1838,  after  protracted 
sufferings,  Father  Jaccard  received  in  his  turn  the  much-coveted 
crown  of  martyrdom.  Ten  bamboos  were  broken  by  the  exe- 
cutioners over  his  body ;  but  ';  though  each  stroke  made  the 
blood  flow,  this  intrepid  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ  did  not  utter  a 
sigh,  nor  allow  a  single  cry  to  escape  his  lips."  The  bishop  of 
Armecy,  who  undertook  to  relate  to  his  mother  the  circum- 
stances of  his  glorious  death,  says,  that  when  Madame  Jaccard 
heard  that  the  martyrdom  was  accomplished,  "she  uttered  a 
cry  of  joy,  and  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears,  exclaiming,  'Thanks 
to  the  Almighty  !  I  am  delivered  from  the  dread  which  I  felt, 
in  spite  of  myself,  lest  he  should  be  overcome  by  his  suffer- 
ings.' "*  Thomas  Tien,  a  Chinese  youth  of  eighteen,  died 
with  him,  and  displayed,  not  only  the  fortitude,  but  even  the 
the  gayety  of  spirit,  which  the  Chinese  martyrs  shared  with  the 
victims  of  the  primitive  ages.  "  Upon  arriving  near  the  inn 
where  it  was  usual  for  criminals  on  their  way  to  execution  to 
take  some  refreshment,  the  young  Thomas,  turning  to  Father 
Jaccard,  said  in  jest,  'Will  you  take  any  refreshment,  father?' 
'  No,  rny  child,'  replied  M.  Jaccard,  smiling.  '  Nor  I  either,' 
added  Thomas;  'to  heaven,  then,  my  father!'  r 

But  we  must  go  back  for  a  moment  to  1833,  and  to  the 
martyrdom  of  Father  Gagelin.  He  did  not  die  alone.  "While 
living  he  had  not  labored  in  vain,  and  the  spiritual  children 
whom  he  had  begotten  to  God  proved  worthy  of  their  apostle 
and  guide.  Many  accompanied  him  in  that  last  dread  journey, 
whose  death  was  perhaps  as  admirable  as  his  own,  and  affords 
a  new  proof  that  the  Church  knows  how  to  gain  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  exactly  such  converts  from  the  heathen  as  all 
her  apostles  had  won  in  the  eighteen  which  went  before.  Some 
were  beaten  till  the  flesh  fell  in  pieces  from  them,  yet  these  poor 
Chinese  neophytes  were  as  valiant  in  the  combat,  as  unmoved 
in  their  torments,  as  the  venerable  pastors  who  had  made  known 
to  them  the  Saviour  for  whom  they  died.  They  even  jested, 
with  a  holy  mirth,  under  the  shadow  of  the  scaffold.  Paul  Doi- 
Euong,  being  roughly  dragged  to  execution,  and  embarrassed  by 
his  chains,  said  smilingly,  "  Let  us  go  a  little  slower;  I  know 
the  way,  and  there  is  no  danger  of  our  losing  it."  Michael 
Kenou,  a  friend  of  Paul,  was  thus  addressed  on  the  following 
day  by  the  king  himself:  "You  have  seen  Buong's  head  cut 
off;  well,  have  you  learned  to  feel  a  little  ?  If  you  are  ready  to 
renounce  your  religion,  speak."  "  Certainly,"  replied  the  con- 
fessor, with  the  sober  dignity  which  a  true  martyr  always 
displays,  "  we  all  fear  your  power  much ;  but  as  to  abandoning 

*  Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  397. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  109 

my  religion,  that  I  can  never  do.  If  you  release  me,  well ;  if 
you  order  my  head  to  be  cut  off,  I  shall  suffer  it  cheerfully."* 
reter  Lieou,  another  of  these  Christian  heroes,  who  was  in  his 
seventy-sixth  year,  died  with  such  holy  calm,  that  even  the 
executioners,  confounded  by  such  mysterious  joy,  exclaimed  to 
one  another,  "  Truly  this  Christian  religion  is  a  good  religion  !" 

And  they  seem  to  have  been  all  alike.  Young  and  old,  men 
and  women,  all  had  received  through  the  ministry  of  their  apos- 
tolic teachers  such  a  measure  of  faith,  such  an  ardent  longing  for 
the  vision  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  cowardice,  lukewarmness,  and 
self-love  found  no  place  among  them.  In  truth,  they  had  already 
accepted  martyrdom  in  purpose  when  they  consented  to  embrace 
Christianity,  for  they  knew,  like  the  Christians  of  the  first  ages, 
that  it  was  no  lip-service  which  the  profession  required  from 
them,  and  that  the  baptism  of  blood  was  likely  to  follow  close 
upon  that  of  water.  And  so  when  the  hour  of  trial  arrived,  it 
did  not  take  them  by  surprise.  Thaddeus,  a  son  of  the  martyr 
Michael  Kenou,  being  himself  in  bonds,  and  ignorant  of  the  fate 
of  his  parents,  wrote  thus  to  them  from  his  prison :  "  I  salute 
my  father  and  mother.  I  beg  them  to  remember  the  example  of 
Jesus  Christ,  who  suffered  for  us ;  to  call  to  mind  also  that  the 
Holy  Virgin,  His  blessed  Mother,  had  her  soul  pierced  with  a 
sword  of  grief;  yet  it  was  necessary  that  she  should  conform  to 
the  will  of  God  the  Father.  I  beg  my  father  and  mother  to 
remember  and  meditate  upon  these  examples;  lest  they  should 
give  way  to  sorrow,  should  be  impatient  and  afflicted  on  my 
account,  and  thus  render  themselves  guilty  in  the  sight  of  God, 
not  accepting  His  holy  will.  It  grieves  me  that  you  should  be 
conscious  of  my  sufferings ;  but  I  beseech  you  to  render  thanks 
to  God,  who  gives  me  strength  to  support  all  these  torments,  "f 
We  have  seen  that  his  parents  needed  not  his  pious  counsels ; 
and  if  we  would  comprehend  the  prodigious  work  of  grace  which 
had  raised  thousands  of  semi-barbarians  to  these  sublime  degrees 
of  virtue,  we  have  only  to  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  the  con- 
dition of  their  unconverted  fellow-countrymen. 

The  events  just  referred  to  occurred  in  (Jochin-China.  Bishop 
Taberd,  one  of  the  seven  Vicars  Apostolic  of  the  kingdom  of 
Annam,  in  his  account  of  the  terrible  persecution  of  which  they 
were  the  fruits,  speaking  only  of  his  own  vicariate,  says: 
"  Eighty  thousand  Christians  are  flying  hither  and  thither  in 
the  deepest  distress,  and  often  destitute  of  every  thing,  so  that  a 
native  priest  writing  to  me  observes, '  Our  Christians  will  die  of 
hunger  before  they  have  time  to  die  for  their  religion.'  Nearly 

*  Annales,  tome  vii.,  p.  529. 

t  im. 


110  CHAPTER  II. 

four  hundred  churches,  the  creation  of  their  labors  and  alms, 
are  utterly  destroyed."  And  then  this  prelate  adds,  "  Forests, 
caves,  and  rugged  mountains,  these  are  at  present  the  asylum  of 
our  missionaries ;  prisons  or  exile  that  of  our  neophytes."  Yet 
they  have  survived  this  trial,  like  every  other,  and  come  out  of 
it,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  with  increased  numbers.  We  must 
be  blind  indeed  not  to  discern  the  divinity  of  that  religion  which 
such  a  tempest  could  not  even  weaken, — more  blind  and  gross 
than  the  pagans  themselves,  multitudes  of  whom  were  con- 
verted by  the  contemplation  of  virtues  which  should  not  leave 
us  unmoved,  and  of  triumphs  in  which  even  they  could  discern 
the  power  of  God. 

Yet  the  emperor  Minh-Menh,  the  Nero  of  Cochin-China,  was 
no  feeble  adversary.  There  is  something  so  purely  hellish  in 
the  malice  of  this  monster,  such  a  personal  and  inextinguishable 
hatred  of  Christianity  in  all  his  acts,  that  it  is  easy  to  see  who 
presided  at  his  councils.  It  was  no  mere  jealousy  of  foreign 
influence,  no  petty  partiality  for  national  customs,  which  dictated 
his  atrocious  edicts.  Like  Yong-Tching,  he  knew  wrhat  Chris- 
tians were,  and  deliberately  abhorred  them  with  the  fury  of  a 
demon.  The  son  of  Gia-Long,  his  own  predecessor,  had  been, 
as  an  intelligent  Protestant  traveller  remarks,  "  a  decided  con- 
vert to  the  Christian  religion,  and  accompanied  the  Bishop  of 
Adran  to  France  in  1787."*  A  French  navigator  relates,  that 
the  mausoleum  "which  Gia-Long  built  in  honor  of  the  Bishop 
of  Adran,  still  forms  the  most  curious  monument  in  the  city  of 
Hue-Fou."f  Minh-Menh  was  not,  therefore,  wholly  ignorant 
of  the  truths  of  Christianity,  nor  of  the  character  which  they 
imparted  to  their  professors.  Many  of  his  own  mandarins  had 
warned  him  of  the  bad  effects  of  his  suicidal  policy,  but  in  vain. 
Civil  war  devastated  his  kingdom,  and  his  greatest  nobles 
assured  him  that  he  had  no  braver  soldiers,  no  more  faithful 
subjects,  than  the  Christians.  He  only  replied  by  a  fresh  out- 
burst of  demoniacal  rage.  A  legion  of  devils  seem  to  have 
entered  into  this  man.  But  even  with  such  allies  he  utterly 
failed,  from  first  to  last,  in  his  warfare  against  Christianity,  and 
only  furnished  occasion  for  fresh  victories  to  those  whom  he 
strove  in  vain  to  exterminate,  but  who  conquered  him  by  the 
very  agony  which  he  thought  was  a  triumph  for  himself. 

In  1833,  the  year  which  saw  the  death  of  Father  Gagelin, 
another  martyrdom,  more  appalling  perhaps  in  its  details 
than  any  which  ever  occurred  even  in  the  blood-stained  land 
of  China,  attested  both  the  unappeasable  malice  of  Minh- 


*  Crawfurd's  Embassy  to  Siam  and  Cochin-CMna,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  509. 
f  Voyage  de  la  Favorite,  tome  ii.,  p.  318. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  Ill 

Menh,  and  the  supernatural  fortitude  of  his  victims.  Four 
years  earlier,  the  Abbe  March  and,  a  French  priest  of  the 
diocese  of  Besancon,  quitted  his  country  for  the  mission  of 
Lower  Cochin-China.  When  the  persecution  of  1838  broke 
out,  he  refused  to  quit  his  post,  for  he  served  One  who  had 
said,  "  The  good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep."  For 
two  years  he  succeeded  in  escaping  the  search  of  the  blood- 
hounds who  were  on  his  track.  In  September,  1835,  during 
the  civil  war  which  then  raged,  he  was  captured,  and  the 
heart  of  Minh-Menh  was  filled  with  exultation.  Conducted 
forthwith  to  the  capital,  and  surrounded  by  all  the  instru- 
ments of  torture  in  order  to  intimidate  his  soul,  his  examina- 
tion commenced. 

"  Are  you  Phu-Koai-Uhon  ?"  This  was  the  Chinese  name  of 
the  Vicar  Apostolic.  "  No,  I  am  not."  "  Where,  then,  is  he  ?" 
" I  know  not."  "  Are  you  acquainted  with  him?"  " I  know  him, 
but  it  is  long  since  I  have  seen  him."  "How  many  years  have 
you  been  in  this  kingdom?"  "Five  years."  That  night  the  flesh 
of  both  his  thighs  was  burned  off  with  red-hot  irons,  and  then 
he  was  inclosed  in  a  cage,  two  and  a  half  feet  in  height,  three 
in  length,  and  two  in  width ;  and  so  he  passed  the  night.  On 
the  morrow  he  was  again  brought  forth,  and  then  was  enacted 
a  scene  of  horror  at  the  bare  recital  of  which  nature  shudders, 
but  which  our  fathers  were  accustomed  to  look  upon  without 
fear  in  the  amphitheatres  of  Smyrna  and  Antioch.  At  a  signal 
from  the  presiding  mandarin,  live  men  held  him  down,  while 
five  others  plunged  at  the  same  moment  as  many  bars  of  hot 
iron,  each  eighteen  inches  long,  into  different  parts  of  his 
body.  The  strong  heart  of  the  martyr  did  not  fail,  though  the 
anguish  was  more  than  mortal  man  could  bear ;  yet  even  the 
sharp  and  bitter  cry  of  agony  was  obedient  to  faith,  and  as  the 
smoke  rose  up,  and  the  tender  flesh  seethed  under  the  burning 
rods,  the  baffled  heathen  only  heard  him  exclaim,  "  Oh,  my 
Father!"  And  then  they  mocked  him,  when  the  irons  had 
grown  cold  in  his  body,  arid  cried  out,  "  Father  of  the  religion 
of  Jesus !"  And  next  they  asked  him  questions  of  his  religion. 
"  Why  do  Christians  tear  out  the  eyes  of  the  dying?"  they  said, 
alluding  to  the  anointing  of  the  eyes  by  Extreme  Unction. 
The  victim,  gathering  up  all  his  strength,  answered,  "  They  do 
not  so  ;  no  such  thing  is  ever  done."  Upon  this  five  fresh  irons 
were  applied  to  him.  "Why  do  married  people,"  they  asked, 
when  these  in  their  turn  had  become  cold,  "  stand  before  the 
priest  round  the  altar?"  He  could  still  speak,  so  he  said, 
"  They  come,  in  the  assembly  of  Christians,  to  ask  a  blessing 
on  their  union."  A  third  time  his  agony  recbmmences.  "What 
enchanted  bread  do  you  give  to  people  who  have  confessed, 


112  CHAPTER   II. 

to  make  them  cling  so  firmly  to  their  religion !"  "  It  is  not 
bread,"  replied  his  dying  lips ;  "  it  is  the  Body  of  onr  Lord 
Jesns  Christ,  Incarnate,  and  become  the  nourishment  of  the 
soul."  Thus,  to  the  last,  he  witnessed  for  God.  But  it  was 
not  over  yet,  though  fifteen  ghastly  furrows  had  been  burned 
in  his  body.  They  offered  him  food,  which  he  refused.  And 
now  two  other  executioners  advanced,  each  armed  with  a  keen 
and  heavy  blade ;  a  rolling  of  drums  is  heard,  and  when  it 
ceases,  both  his  breasts  are  lying  on  the  ground.  He  makes 
no  movement.  Again  the  drums  are  heard,  and  again  two 
great  pieces  of  flesh  are  cut  from  him.  He  turns  his  eyes  to 
heaven,  then  nature  yields,  and  he  bows  his  head,  before  they 
have  finished  their  work.  Strike  on,  ministers  of  hell ;  that 
poor  body  feels  no  more!  The  soul,  which  you  could  not  touch, 
has  fled,  and  the  martyr  is  with  his  God. 

Such  are  the  apostles  whom  the  Church  sends  to  do  her  wrork, 
even  in  this  nineteenth  century.  "Through  great  tribulation," 
they  pass  to  their  immense  reward.  Like  all  their  predecessors, 
during  eighteen  hundred  years,  it  was  in  the  Church  that  they 
found  the  gifts  which  made  them  what  they  were,  and  without 
which  they  would  neither  have  obtained  courage  to  enter  upon 
that  terrible  warfare,  nor  strength  to  persevere,  nor  grace  to 
triumph  in  it.  Man  is  too  weak,  as  even  the  pagans  have 
understood,  to  contend  alone  in  such  a  strife  as  this.  If  that 
"  burning  fiery  furnace,"  into  which  the  martyrs  of  old  were 
cast,  was  tempered  as  "  by  a  wTind  bringing  dew,"  so  that  "  the 
fire  touched  them  not  at  all,  nor  troubled  them,  nor  did  them 
any  harm,"  it  was  because  there  was  One  among  them,  whom 
even  the  King  of  Babylon  recognized,  when  he  cried  out  in 
astonishment  and  fear,  "Did  we  not  cast  three  men  bound  into 
the  midst  of  the  fire?  Behold,  I  see  four  men  loose,  and  walk- 
ing in  the  midst  of  the  fire,  and  there  is  no  hurt  in  them,  and 
the  form  of  the  fourth  is  like  the  Son  of  God."  * 

More  than,  twenty  years  have  elapsed  since  the  event  just 
narrated,  yet  the  battle  of  which  it  was  only  a  characteristic 
incident  has  not  ceased  to  rage  during  the  interval.  Each  year 
in  succession  has  witnessed  a  repetition  of  similar  combats.  It 
is  impossible  to  record  them  all.  "The  time  would  fail  to  tell," 
as  the  Holy  Apostle  speaks,  of  all  the  great  actions  accomplished 
in  this  eastern  land,  by  men  animated  with  his  own  spirit,  and 
ever  ready,  as  he  was,  to  die  for  the  souls  of  their  brethren,  "  not 
accepting  deliverance,  that  they  might  obtain  a  better  resurrec- 
tion." In  every  part  of  China  the  same  scenes  occurred ;  but 
there  is  one  region,  to  which  we  have  not  hitherto  referred,  in 

*  Daniel  iii.  92. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  113 

which  they  present  such  a  character  of  extraordinary  sublimity 
as  is  not  surpassed,  if  indeed  it  be  equalled,  even  in  the  annals 
of  that  divine  religion  which  has  inspired  so  many  noble  deeds. 


COKE  A. 


At  the  southern  extremity  of  the  vast  province  of  Mantchooria, 
jutting  out  between  the  Yellow  Sea  and  the  Sea  of  Japan,  lies 
the  great  peninsula  of  Corea.  Here  reigns  a  sovereign  who  is 
nominally  dependent,  like  the  kings  of  Annam,  upon  the  em- 
peror of  China.  If  we  interrupt  for  a  moment  our  narrative  to 
notice  the  progress  of  Christianity  in  Corea,  the  digression  will 
hardly  require  an  apology.  "  There  is  nothing,"  says  an 
eloquent  French  writer,  "  in  the  records  of  missions,  so  like  a 
martyrology  as  the  annals  of  the  Church  in  Corea.  Her  whole 
history  is  written  in  blood.  Every  date  is  marked  by  a  perse- 
cution, every  detail  describes  a  scene  of  torture,  a  dungeon,  or 
an  execution.  Every  person  discovered  to  be  a  Christian  is 
invariably  a  martyr.  Her  first  neophyte  was  a  martyr.  Her 
first  Chinese  apostle  a  martyr.  Her  first  native  priest  a  mar- 
tyr. Her  first  bishop  a  martyr.  Her  first  European  mission- 
aries wrere  all  martyrs."  Let  us  see  what  has  been  the  result, 
up  to  the  present  hour,  of  the  conflict  in  Corea  between  the 
apostles  of  the  Church  and  the  powers  of  darkness. 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  remark,  that  England  had  the  honor  to 
give  a  martyr  to  Corea.  In  1788,  Father  Thomas  King,  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  died  in  that  land.  But  it  is  only  of  efforts  made 
in  our  own  day  that  we  propose  to  speak,  and  our  narrative  com- 
mences with  the  year  1817.  It  was  at  that  date  that  the  prelate, 
himself  destined  to  martyrdom,  who  governed  the  over-tasked 
apostles  of  this  land  of  martyrs,  appealed  to  Catholic  Europe  for 
fresh  laborers  in  the  Corean  mission,  and  these  were  the  attrac- 
tions which  he  offered  to  their  charity  :  "  Any  ecclesiastic  who 
may  receive  this  vocation  may  be  assured  that  he  will  have  the 
happiness  to  suffer  much  for  the  glory  of  God,  that  he  will 
make  many  conversions,  and  that  in  a  few  years  he  will  obtain 
the  crown  of  martyrdom."  .  The  formidable  invitation  was  ac- 
cepted, and  here  is  a  recent  example  of  the  spirit  in  which  the 
true  missionary  of  Christ  responds  to  such  a  call :  "  It  is  for  the 
purpose  of  penetrating  into  a  kingdom  from  whence  his  prede- 
cessors have  only  been  delivered  by  the  scaffold,  and  with  the 
intention  of  sharing  the  misery  and  proscription  of  a  few  faith- 
ful and  unknown  strangers,  that  M.  de  Maistre  has  devoted  ten 
years  of  his  life,  spent  sixty  thousand  francs  in  roaming  around 
the  impenetrable  frontier,  in  running  about  in  all  sorts  of  dis- 

9 


114:  CHAPTER   II. 

guises,  through  all  kinds  of  perils,  from  the  ports  of  China  to 
the  deserts  of  Leao-tong,  seeking  for  Corean  guides,  whom  he 
looked  for  in  vain,  asking  alternately  the  Chinese  barks  and 
the  French  ships  to  land  him  upon  the  coast  where  his  tomb 
was  already  marked  out !  Death  was  so  evidently  to  be  the 
result  of  the  enterprise,  that  the  most  courageous  seamen  re- 
fused to  be  his  accomplices  by  lending  him  their  aid.  It 
required  the  zeal  of  an  apostle  to  comprehend  this  heroism,  and 
to  second  its  endeavors.  Father  Helot,  being  a  priest,  under- 
stood what  the  Cross  required  of  him ;  and  as  a  member  of  a 
society  whose  tradition  it  is  that  they  have  never  been  baffled 
by  any  difficulties  or  perils,  he  felt  himself  at  the  post  where  his 
company  wished  him  to  be,  when  rivalling  in  zeal  and  courage 
a  foreign  apostle.  In  the  general  panic,  the  Jesuit  becomes  the 
pilot  of  a  battered  bark,  safely  conducts  his  intrepid  passenger 
to  an  unknown  land,  and  having  deposited  him  on  the  shore, 
and  looked  after  him  for  a  while  with  prayers  and  earnest  good 
wishes,  returns  to  his  neophytes  with  the  consoling  satisfaction 
of  having  exposed  his  life  for  a  mission  that  is  not  his  own."* 

The  "  intrepid  passenger,"  piloted  by  a  Jesuit  as  courageous 
as  himself,  fought  his  way  at  last  into  the  interior,  and  com- 
menced the  secret  and  perilous  labors  which  his  companions 
will  presently  describe  to  us.  A  French  journal  has  lately 
announced  his  final  destiny  :  "  The  Eon  Sens  of  Annecy  relates 
the  death  in  Corea  of  a  missioner  belonging  to  the  illustrious 
family  of  de  Maistre.  Father  Joseph  Ambrose  died  of  fatigue 
and  want  on  the  20th  of  December,  1857,  after  spending  ten 
years  in  that  persecuted  mission. "f 

In  the  single  year  1839,  Bishop  Imbert,  whom  the  Holy  See 
has  since  proposed  to  the  veneration  of  the  faithful,  accompa- 
nied by  Fathers  Chastan  and  Maubant,  was  martyred,  with  an 
escort  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  their  disciples,  of  whom 
seventy  were  beheaded,  and  one  hundred  and  eighty  strangled. 

In  1847,  Bishop  Ferreol,  who  had  then  supreme  charge  of  this 
afflicted  church,  described  in  a  letter  which  reached  Europe, 
u  the  generosity  and  the  triumphs  of  the  Corean  martyrs."  He 
gave  an  account  also  of  the  "  apostolic  ministry,  so  crucifying  to 
nature,"  in  which  he  and  his  clergy  were  engaged.  The  mode 
of  living,  he  says,  "is  fatal  to  Europeans;"  and  we  can  easily 
believe  him  when  he  adds,  that  rice  and  water  formed  their  only 
food.  It  was  only  by  the  aid  of  the  most  complete  disguise  that 
they  could  ever  venture  out,  as  death  would  immediately  have 
followed  detection  ;  and  the  Christians,  even  those  "belonging 

*  Annals,  vol.  xiv.,  p.  190. 

f  Weekly  Register,  August  30,  1859. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  115 

to  the  highest  nobility,"  could  only  receive  the  sacraments  at 
midnight,  when  the  pagan  members  of  their  family,  who  would 
have  betrayed  them  without  mercy,  were  asleep.  "  This  myste- 
rious secrecy,"  the  bishop  adds,  u  is  here  a  necessity,  for  every 
Christian  seized  is  put  to  death,  unless  he  rescues  himself  by 
apostasy."*  Yet  they  not  only  cheerfully  accepted  this  u  cru- 
cifying" existence,  but  in  the  course  of  that  very  year,  in  spite 
of  the  appalling  lot  which  conversion  entailed,  so  powerfully 
did  divine  grace  co-operate  with  these  apostolic  missionaries, 
that  they  baptized  seven  hundred  and  sixty-eight  adults,  and 
admitted  four  hundred  and  sixty-seven  fresh  catechumens,  being 
an  addition  of  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  thirty-five  to  the 
number  of  those  who  were  willing  to  purchase,  even  at  so  great 
a  price,  the  hopes  and.  the  privileges  of  Catholics. 

Let  us  pass  over  ten  years,  for  we  are  compelled  to  be  brief, 
and  in  1856  we  have  another  account  of  the  Corean  mission 
from  one  who  had  just  succeeded  in  entering  it.  He  writes  to  a 
friend  in  France,  a  priest  like  himself,  and  here  are  some  of  his 
words  :  "  The  Europeans  have  hitherto  made  Shanghai  the 
term  of  their  wanderings  eastward,  but  the  Catholic  missionary, 
who  has  heard  the  words  of  his  Divine  Master,  Ite  docete  onunes 
gentes,  4  Go,  teach  all  nations,'  cannot  circumscribe  himself 
within  limits  where  treaties,  ships,  and  cannons  guarantee  freedom 
and  security.  His  duty  calls  him  amidst  dangers  and  sufferings.  . 
For  my  part,  I  have  had  but  a  small  share  in  them ;  unworthy 
to  suffer  for  my  God,  my  portion  has  been  less  than  that  of 
others."  He  had  started  from  Shanghai  in  company  with  three 
men  of  his  own  class.  The  first  was  Bishop  Berneux.  "  the 
veteran  of  the  missions,"  who  had  already  spent  twelve  years  in 
Mantchooria,  had  been  scourged  and  imprisoned  in  the  dungeons 
of  Tong-King,  and  was  looking  forward  to  martyrdom  as  the 
crown  of  his  labors,  when  he  was  rescued  by  the  appearance  of 
a  French  frigate.  He  had  just  been  appointed  by  the  Holy  See 
head  of  the  Corean  mission,  a  post  for  which  the  brave  and  ex- 
perienced confessor  had  been  duly  trained  by  previous  suffer- 
ings. The  second  fellow-passenger  in  this  voyage  was  a  Jesuit 
from  the  interior  of  China ;  the  third,  a  missionary  who  had 
already  toiled  in  India ;  the  fourth,  the  writer  of  the  letter  which 
we  quote.  They  are  in  sight  of  Corea,  after  a  painful  voyage, 
and  the  spectacle  suggests  to  him  this  reflection:  "Corea! 
Corea!  that  name  which  sounds  auspiciously  in  every  heart 
anxious  for  the  salvation  of  souls  ;  that  name  which  has  only 
been  heard  in  Europe  as  the  symbol  of  persecution  and  martyr- 
dom, that  name  revived  and  fortified  us.  The  past  was  forgotten  r 

*  Annals,  vol.  x.,  p.  268. 


116  CHAPTER   II. 

all  our  desires,  all  our  thoughts,  were  for  that  land."  In  the 
night  of  Good  Friday,  1856,  they  landed  in  a  creek,  and  on  the 
following  day,  escorted  by  Father  Daveluy,  who  had  been  sent 
by  M.  de  Maistre  to  meet  them,  they  entered  the  capital,  muf- 
fled in  the  national  garb  of  mourners,  which  effectually  conceals 
the  features.  The  streets  were  crowded,  but  their  disguise  was 
impenetrable ;  though  the  writer  adds  that  he  could  not  help 
saying  to  himself,  as  the  people  jostled  him  on  every  side,  "If 
you  knew  who  I  am,  you  would  do  worse  than  elbow  me." 

In  the  following  year,  on  the  8th  of  September,  1858,  Father 
Feron,  another  Corean  missionary,  writes  to  his  family  from 
the  "  Valley  of  the  Pines,"  a  secret  position  in  which  he  was 
studying  the  language  of  the  country.  It  is  difficult,  he  says, 
"  for  us  to  send  any  thing  from  Corea,  even  a  simple  letter.  In 
order  to  secure  the  dispatch  of  this,  it  will  be  necessary  to  send 
it  by  way  of  Mantchooria,  secreted  in  the  boot  of  a  courier ; 
this  courier  will  travel  expressly  for  us  on  foot  upwards  of  six 
hundred  miles  in  the  depth  of  winter,  and  under  pretence  of 
purchasing  merchandise  at  a  fair,  which  is  held  annually  on 
the  frontiers,  he  will  deliver  our  letters  to  the  couriers  sent 
by  Bishop  Verolles," — the  well-known  confessor,  and  Yicar 
Apostolic  of  Mantchooria — "  and  will  bring  back  to  us  the 
correspondence  of  the  mission,  as  well  as  the  other  objects, 
packed  in  the  form  of  bales  of  Chinese  merchandise." 

If  these  precautions  were  necessary  in  the  dispatch  of  a  letter, 
we  may  judge  of  those  which  the  security  of  the  writers  re- 
quired. Yet  Father  Feron,  writing  to  his  mother  and  sisters, 
and  therefore  without  reserve,  could  jest  at  his  terrible  position 
with  charming  pleasantry,  and  thus  describe  some  of  its  details ; 
"  I  live  in  one  of  the  finest  houses  in  the  village,  that  of  the 
catechist,  an  opulent  man  ;  it  is  considered  to  be  worth  a  pound 
sterling.  Do  not  laugh,  there  are  some  of  the  value  of  eight 
pence.  My  room  has  a  sheet  of  paper  for  a  door.  .  .  .  the  rain 
falls  through  my  roof  as  fast  as  it  falls  outside,  and  two  large 
kettles  barely  suffice  to  receive  the  water  that  filters  through 
the  grass-covered  roof  of  my  presbytery."  And  then,  tenderly 
mindful,  no  doubt,  of  that  loved  group  at  home  by  whom  his 
letter  would  be  eagerly  read,  he  enumerates  his  worldly  posses- 
sions :  "  The  prophet  Elisha,  at  the  house  of  the  Shunamite, 
had  for  furniture  a  bed,  a  table,  a  chair,  and  a  candlestick — in 
all,  four  articles.  There  was  no  superfluity  here.  For  my  part, 
if  I  were  to  search  well,  I  could  also  find  four  pieces  of  furniture. 
Let  us  see :  first,  a  wooden  candlestick ;  second,  a  trunk ;  third, 
a  pipe ;  fourth,  a  pair  of  shoes  ;  total,  four.  Bed,  none ;  chairs, 
none ;  table,  none.  Such  being  my  furniture,  am  I  richer  or 
poorer  than  the  prophet  ?  This  is  a  problem  which  is  perhaps 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  117 

not  easy  to  solve  :  for,  admitting  that  his  room  was  more  com- 
fortable than  mine,  we  must  also  consider  that  none  of  the  fur- 
niture belonged  to  him  ;  whilst  in  my  case,  granting  that  the 
candlestick  belongs  to  the  chapel,  and  that  the  trunk  was  lent 
to  me  by  Monseigneur  Berneux,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  at 
least  the  pipe  and  the  shoes  are  mine.  The  latter  I  only  put 
on  to  say  Mass  in.  As  to  the  pipe,  it  serves  to  keep  one  in 
countenance  when  travelling  in  a  country  where  every  one 
smokes,  though  I  have  not  succeeded  in  discovering  any  charm 
in  it,  and  have  even  been  intoxicated  by  it  after  two  experi- 
ments, which  has  quite  taken  away  from  me  the  desire  of 
making  a  third."  Is  there  not  something  attractive  in  this 
simple  gayety  of  spirit,  worthy  of  an  apostle  who  had  bidden 
an  eternal  farewell  to  all  the  ordinary  joys  of  life,  and  who 
could  thus  jest  at  the  poverty  within  his  humble  dwelling,  and 
even  at  the  death  which  was  lurking  at  the  door  ? 

The  Abbe  Feron  speaks  with  admiration  of  the  Corean 
Christians :  "  When  once  they  have  learned  the  truth,  no 
sacrifice  is  too  great  for  them.  A  nobleman,  or  the  son  of 
a  mandarin,  will  become  a  laborer,  if  necessary.  Indeed,  there 
are  few  who  are  restrained  by  sacrifices,  when  the  salvation  of 
their  soul  is  at  stake.  Would  that  all  Europeans  were  like 
them  in  this  respect!"  Many  of  the  converts,  it  is  said,  quit 
their  homes  immediately  after  baptism,  to  find  a  refuge  in  the 
mountains,  where  they  labor,  or  starve,  as  Providence  may  ap- 
point. It  must  be  admitted  that  such  converts  are  at  least  in 
earnest. 

Let  us  conclude  with  some  extracts  from  a  letter,  of  the  same 
recent  date,  addressed  by  the  venerable  bishop  of  this  persecuted 
flock  to  the  Baron  Henri  de  la  Bouillerie,  who  had  been  one  of 
his  pupils,  a  quarter  of  a  century  before,  in  a  French  college, 
of  which  the  bishop  hacj  been  Eector :  "  My  palace  consists  of 
a  single  room,  three  yards  long  and  two  wide.  I  spend  four 
months  of  every  year  in  this  room,  which  I  never  leave  except 
to  administer  to  my  neophytes.  None  of  the  pagans  suspect  my 
presence  in  my  real  character,  and  the  Christians  themselves  do 
not  know  where  I  reside.  I  communicate  with  them  through  the 
medium  of  four  catechists,  to  whom  alone  my  door  is  open.  If 
there  is  a  sick  call,  they  come,  fetch,  and  accompany  me.  With 
the  mourning  dress  already  mentioned,  I  can  go  into  the  town 

without  danger The  Abbe  Feron,  whom,  as  a  new-comer,  I 

have  placed  in  a  position  where  he  has  a  better  chance  of  find- 
ing provisions  than  elsewhere,  wrote  me  some  time  since  that, 
compared  with  Corean  missioners,  the  Trappists  are  complete 
Sybarites ;  but,  like  a  courageous  inissioner,  he  willingly  accepts 
this  ultra-Trappist  regimen,  and  will  soon  become  habituated  to 


118  CHAPTER  II. 

it.  But  do  not  grieve  for  the  privations  we  have  to  endure  ; 
they  are  so  abundantly  compensated,  that  we  look  on  them  as 
nothing."  And  then  he  describes  the  astonishing  faith  and 
fervor  of  the  neophytes,  who  seem  to  rival  those  who  dwelt  of 
old  in  the  catacombs,  and  to  receive  graces  proportioned  to  the 
almost  desperate  position  which  they  so  generously  embrace. 

During  eight  months  of  the  year,  the  bishop  visits  the 
country  missions,  where  there  is  more  liberty  of  action.  In 
September,  the  Christians  assemble  in  the  mountains  for  a 
spiritual  retreat,  to  which  they  look  forward  with  lively  joy, 
but  which  is  a  period  of  exhausting  labor  to  the  bishop  and  his 
companions.  In  the  capital,  however,  the  most  rigorous  pre- 
cautions are  still  observed.  Even  women  of  the  highest  rank 
only  visit  the  bishop  at  midnight,  encountering  the  greatest 
perils  in  order  to  hear  mass  and  receive  the  sacraments,  and 
with  the  certainty  of  death  if  discovered.  If  by  chance  their 
pagan  relatives  or  domestics  should  be  awake  on  their  return, 
they  know  their  fate.  Yet  in  spite  of  these  terrible  difficulties, 
as  formidable  as  any  wrhich  religion  has  ever  encountered, 
"  the  blood  of  the  martyrs,"  in  the  words  of  Bishop  Berneux, 
"  is  beginning  to  bring  forth  fruits.  ....  It  is  an  incontestable 
fact  that  there  is  a  more  sensible  tendency  than  ever  to  conform 
to  our  holy  religion.  Our  persecutors  themselves  assert  it ; 
and  the  mandarins,  like  the  apostate  emperor  of  old,  admitted 
a  few  months  since,  in  one  of  their  assemblies,  that  Christ 
would  triumph.  What  would  they  say  if  they  saw  the  son  of 
a  minister  of  the  king,  himself  a  mandarin,  sending  us  presents, 
and  asking  as  a  favor  permission  to  visit  us ;  if  they  knew  that 
the  wife  of  one  of  the  king's  uncles  has  urged  his  brothers  to 
become  Catholics  ;  and  that  in  these  very  palaces  where  the 
vow  has  been  so  often  taken  to  exterminate  even  the  last  vestige 
of  the  Christian  name,  the  true  God  has  His  worshippers,  who 
are  only  waiting  for  more  peaceful  times  to  present  themselves 
for  baptism  ?"  Finally,  the  Yicar  Apostolic  relates,  that  whereas 
two  years  earlier  there  was  not  a  single  bishop  in  Corea,  and 
only  two  missionaries,  while  the  coasts  were  so  carefully  guarded 
that  ingress  was  almost  impossible,  there  are  now  two  bishops 
and  five  priests,  who  minister  to  fifteen  thousand  two  hundred 
and  six  Christians,  every  one  of  whom  is  a  hero  by  the  very  act 
of  his  profession,  ready  to  endure  for  the  love  of  Christ  all  that 
malice  can  inflict,  and  whose  number  is  annually  increased  by 
several  hundreds.  Such  are  the  fruits  of  apostolic  labors  which 
only  the  faith  of  Catholics  could  inspire  or  sustain,  which  even 
pagans  contemplate  with  awe  and  admiration,  and  which  God 
alone  knows  how  to  recompense. 

We  shall  hear  again  of  Corea,  and  of  the  men  who  labor  in 


MISSIONS   IN    CHINA.  119 

it  at  this  moment,  from  Protestant  travellers  in  China ;  mean- 
while, let  it  be  permitted,  in  terminating  this  brief  notice,  to 
give  a  single  example  of  the  courage  and  virtue,  not  of  its 
foreign  apostles,  but  of  its  native  confessors.  We  know  in  spite 
of  what  discouragements  they  dare  to  profess  the  faith ;  let  us 
see  how  they  maintain  their  profession  when  the  hour  of  trial 
arrives. 

In  1852,  Father  Thomas  Tshoez,  a  native  Corean  priest,  and 
a  member  of  one  of  the  noblest  and  wealthiest  families  in  the 
land,  wrote  to  the  director  of  the  foreign  missions  in  Paris. 
Amongst  other  examples  of  recent  martyrdoms,  this  Corean 
missionary, — who  had  spent  three  years  on  the  coast  in  vain 
attempts  to  enter  his  native  land  after  completing  his  studies  at 
Macao,  but  had  at  length  succeeded, — notices  two,  in  which  he 
had  a  special  interest,  because  they  were  those  of  his  own  father 
and  mother.  The  former,  in  spite  of  his  rank,  had  accepted  the 
lowly  office  of  catechist  in  1839,  and  subsequently  resided  in 
the  town  of  Seoul,  from  which  a  fresh  burst  of  persecution  ban- 
ished him,  his  family,  and  kinsfolk,  amounting  to  about  forty 
persons.  They  were  followed  by  the  emissaries  of  the  king,  and 
tracked  to  their  retreat,  where  they  were  devoutly  preparing  for 
the  martyrdom  which  they  knew  was  at  hand.  "  We  have  long 
been  expecting  you,"  said  the  head  of  this  noble  family  to  the 
satellites  when  they  knocked  at  his  door ;  "  we  are  quite  ready, 
but  the  day  has  not  yet  dawned ;  rest  your  weary  limbs,  and 
accept  some  refreshment,  after  which  we  will  set  out  in  due 
order."*  The  emissaries  of  the  king,  filled  with  astonishment 
at  so  much  charity  and  fortitude,  exclaimed  with  enthusiasm, 
"This  man  and  all  who  belong  to  him  are  truly  Christians! 
There  is  no  fear  of  their  attempting  to  escape ;  let  us  take  a 
little  rest."  At  length  they  commenced  the  journey  which  was 
to  be  their  last  in  this  world.  The  little  children,  foot-sore,  and 
fainting  with  heat, — it  was  in  the  summer  season, — expressed 
their  sufferings  in  plaintive  cries,  but  even  this  trial  did  not 
overcome  their  parents  and  relations.  "Courage, my  brethren," 
said  the  elder  Tshoez ;  "  Behold  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  with  a 
rod  in  his  hand,  measuring  your  steps.  Behold  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  going  before  us  with  His  cross  to  Calvary." 

Arrived  at  the  capital,  the  poor  children  "clinging  with  their 
little  arms  to  the  necks  of  their  mothers,"  they  were  "  greeted 
with  sighs  of  pity,  or  assailed  by  curses  and  imprecations.1" 
"O  wretched  and  wicked  men,"  exclaimed  some  of  the  pagans, 
"  how  can  you  fly  in  the  face  of  death  with  these  tender  chil- 
dren ?"  It  seemed  to  them  monstrous  and  unnatural,  for  they 

*  Annals,  vol.  xv.,  p.  7. 


120  CHAPTER   II. 

had  never  heard  of  the  Holy  Innocents,  and  knew  not  what 
glory  awaits  those  who  die  for  the  name  of  Jesns. 

Francis  Tshoez,  the  father  of  the  priest  who  relates  their  mar- 
tyrdom, was  tortured  on  the  following  day,  and  then  invited  by 
the  presiding  judge  to  apostatize.  "  Would  you  persuade  me  to 
perjure  myself?"  was  his  reply  :  "  If  it  is  a  crime  to  break  faith 
with  man,  how  much  greater  must  be  that  of  infidelity  to  God !" 
One  hundred  and  ten  strokes  of  the  bamboo  tore  his  flesh  to 
pieces,  but  he  looked  steadfastly  through  that  brief  hour  of  suf- 
fering to  the  sure  felicity  beyond.  The  rest  were  subjected  in 
turn  to  the  same  tortures.  "  Some  of  them,"  says  Father  Thomas 
Tshoez,  "  half  dead,  and  totally  unconscious  of  what  they  were 
saying,  muttered  a  formula  of  apostasy  dictated  by  the  judges." 

On  the  following  day,  Francis  was  again  brought  into  court, 
and  commanded  to  read  a  few  pages  out  of  a  book  of  Catholic 
devotions  which  they  presented  to  him,  "for  the  purpose  of 
examining  his  doctrine."  "  With  a  smile  of  pleasure,"  says  his 
son,  "  he  opened  the  book,  and  began  to  read  with  so  much 
unction  and  feeling,  that  the  whole  assembly  arose,  from  a 
spontaneous  movement  of  admiration,  and  extolled  our  holy 
religion,  which  inspires  a  joy  so  pure  and  unfeigned  amid  the 
horrors  of  the  most  frightful  torments."  For  forty  days  they 
continued  to  torment  him  with  fresh  miseries,  "  which  he  bore 
with  such  indescribable  patience,  that  the  executioners  sur- 
named  him  the  stone,  on  account  of  his  apparent  insensibility." 
Finally,  on  the  12th  of  September,  says  his  son,  "  my  father 
consummated  his  glorious  martyrdom." 

But  there  were  still  other  victims,  whose  fate  is  related  by  the 
same  witness — the  only  priest,  perhaps,  who  ever  lived  to  narrate 
the  martyrdom  of  his  whole  house  and  kindred,  and  then  devo- 
ted the  remains  of  his  own  existence  to  convert  their  murderers. 
His  mother's  turn  came  next.  "Although  descended  from  one  of 
the  most  noble  of  the  Corean  families,  my  poor  mother  submit- 
ted without  shrinking  to  every  species  of  privation  .  .  .  Ever  the 
same,  that  is,  constantly  firm  and  magnanimous,  she  witnessed 
without  emotion  the  day  of  combat.  Gentle  and  patient  as  a 
lamb  in  her  suffering,  she  repulsed  with  noble  self-possession 
every  thing  that  was  capable  of  wounding  the  dignity  of  a 
Christian  soul."  Already,  during  the  journey,  she  had  "carried 
in  her  arms  her  youngest  boy,  and  encouraged  the  others  by  hold- 
ing up  to  them  the  example  of  Jesus  flying  to  Egypt  with  Mary 
and  Joseph."  And  now  a  sorer  trial  came  upon  this  Christian 
mother,  so  lately  widowed.  "  Exposed  to  the  rack,"  says  her 
son,  "she  saw  her  flesh  torn,  and  her  joints  dislocated,  without 
uttering  the  slightest  complaint.  But  all  this  torture  was  nothing 
in  comparison  ^with  the  agony  which  she  felt  in  witnessing  the 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  121 

sufferings  of  her  children.  Their  sighs  pierced  her  maternal 
heart  with  a  sword  of  grief.  The  milk  no  longer  flowed  to  her 
wounded  breasts,  and  her  infant  child  sought  in  vain  to  satisfy 
the  claims  of  nature  at  the  dried-up  source  from  which  it  had 
once  derived  sustenance.  Hence  she  who  had  set  at  defiance 
the  executioners  and  their  tortures,  who  had  endured  every 
species  of  personal  suffering,  was  overcome  by  her  tenderness. 
Blinded  by  the  ardor  of  maternal  love,  she  thought  she  might 
be  permitted  to  pronounce  an  outward  formula  of  apostasy, 
whilst  in  her  heart  she  protested  against  the  words."  But  the 
weakness  of  a  moment,  under  the  most  cruel  trial  which  can 
befall  human  nature,  was  to  be  speedily  repaired.  "  God  from 
His  throne  in  heaven,"  writes  her  son,  "  witnessing  the  strug- 
gles of  this  poor  mother,  stretched  out  His  hand  to  His  ser- 
vant." Retracting  with  bitter  tears  her  unwilling  fault,  she 
once  more  proclaimed  before  the  judges  the  faith  which  had 
supported  her  in  all  her  agony,  and  on  the  30th  of  January, 
1840,  the  last  of  her  house  and  race,  with  the  exception  of  one 
who  was  to  recount  her  fall  and  her  triumph,  she  received  the 
crown  of  martyrdom  which  so  many  torments  had  earned. 

Such  are  the  Christians  of  Corea,  and  such  the  fruits  of  an 
apostolate  which  has  already  won  more  than  fifteen  thousand 
converts  to  the  faith  wrhich  demands  from  its  professors  such  sac- 
rifices, and  does  not  demand  them  in  vain.  Once  more  let  the 
reader  ask  himself,  whether  this  is  the  work  of  God,  or  of  man. 


CHINA   AND   ANNAM. 

And  now  we  must  return,  in  order  that  we  may  bring  it  to  an 
end,  to  the  history  of  missions  in  China  Proper  and  Tong-King. 
Our  last  date  was  1833.  Of  the  twenty-seven  years  which  have 
subsequently  elapsed,  each  deserves  its  own  record,  for  each  has 
contributed  its  due  proportion  of  apostolic  labors  and  triumphs. 
If  the  history  upon  which  we  have  entered  referred  to  China 
alone,  such  details  would  not  be  too  minute ;  but  we  have  to 
visit  in  turn  every  country  of  the  world,  and  can  only  glance 
at  the  missionary  annals  of  each.  For  this  reason  we  have  no 
alternative  but  to  suppress  a  multitude  of  facts  and  incidents 
which  would  otherwise  deserve  our  attention,  and  must  confine 
ourselves  to  a  rapid  summary  of  such  as  illustrate  most  effect- 
ively the  contrast  which  it  is  our  purpose  to  trace. 

In  1837,  on  the  20th  of  September,  Father  Cornay  was  led  to 
martyrdom.  He  died  as  one  who  had  led  an  apostolic  life  might 
be  expected  to  die,  but  it  is  of  his  disciples,  rather  than  of  him- 
self, that  we  are  tempted  to  speak.  Three  of  them,  Paul  Mi,  Peter 


122  CHAPTER    II. 

Duong,  and  Peter  Truat, — the  first  one  of  a  family  of  martyrs, — 
were  present  when  Father  Cornay  was  seized,  and  were  destined, 
after  long  sufferings,  to  share  his  fate.  From  their  dungeon 
they  addressed  a  letter  in  French  to  the  members  of  the  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith.  "  Strangers,  and  unworthy 
of  your  attention,"  they  said,  "  we  should  not  have  ventured  to 
send  a  letter  to  Europe,  lest  we  should  seem  to  be  influenced 
by  vanity,  or  anxious  to  be  spoken  of  afar;  but  the  counsels  of 
Father  Marette,  and  the  example  of  the  primitive  Christians, 
who  communicated  to  each  other  their  afflictions  and  their  con- 
solations, have  encouraged  and  will  excuse  us.  ...  Besides, 
we  have  the  confidence  that  the  memorial  of  three  men  about 
to  die  for  the  religion  which  you  have  made  known  to  them, 
will  excite  still  more  your  zeal  in  favor  of  our  persecuted  breth- 
ren and  idolatrous  kinsfolk."  And  then  they  relate  in  simple 
words  what  had  already  befallen  them.  They  had  been  racked 
and  scourged,  but  without  showing  the  least  sign  of  wavering. 
"  How  insane  you  must  be,"  said  one  of  the  judges  to  Paul  Mi, 
who  had  just  received  one  hundred  and  thirty  blows;  "you 
have  not  seen  the  hell  of  the  other  world,  and  while  waiting  to 
do  so,  you  expose  yourself  to  the  hell  of  this."  The  answer  of 
the  martyr  would  probably  only  seem  an  additional  absurdity 
to  the  shrewd  pagan.  "  1  willingly  submit,"  he  said,  "  to  the 
hell  of  this  world,  in  order  to  avoid  the  hell  which  endures  for- 
ever." For  many  months  they  lingered  in  prison,  suffering  al- 
most every  torment  which  man  can  inflict  or  endure,  and  this 
was  the  temper  in  which  these  Chinese  Christians  accepted  a 
lot  from  which  a  violent  death  was  to  be  the  final  issue.  "  Since 
you  wish  it,"  said  Paul  Mi,  in  a  letter  to  Father  Marette,  "  I 
will  speak  of  my  sufferings,  though,  however  great  these  may 
be,  my  sins  are  still  greater.  There  is  no  sort  of  misery  which 
I  have  not  endured.  .  .  .  The  only  grace  which  I  unceasingly 
beg  from  God,  is  a  constant  conformity  to  His  holy  will.  Ask 
it  also  for  me,  that  so,  in  spite  of  my  un worthiness,  1  may  glorify 
the  Lord  by  my  death.  Alas!  how  have  I,  a  poor  sinner,  de- 
served to  be  elected  to  martyrdom  ?  There  is  surely  in  this 
thought  enough  to  cover  me  with  confusion." 

Father  Marette,  who  could  not  without  excessive  rashness 
have  ventured  near  them  in  person,  and  who  has  already  told 
us  how  he  kept  with  him  in  his  own  hiding-place  the  blood- 
stained clothes  of  a  martyred  colleague,  contrived  to  convey  to 
them  the  Blessed  Sacrament  by  the  hands  of  a  native  priest, 
who  affected  to  enter  the  prison  only  as  a  visitor.  "  I  did  not 
conceal  from  myself,"  he  says,-  "  the  danger  of  a  communion 
made  under  the  eyes  of  our  enemies,  but  the  necessity  of  sus- 
taining with  the  bread  of  the  strong  these  poor  weak  soldiers, 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  123 

destined  to  the  most  terrible  of  combats,  made  me  indifferent 
to  every  other  consideration,"  And  so  they  communicated 
secretly  in  the  very  presence  of  their  guards. 

Paul  Mi  was  the  eldest  of  the  victims,  but  his  companions 
were  filled  with  the  same  spirit.  "  Your  son  does  not  think 
himself  worthy,"  wrote  Peter  Duong  to  the  same  missionary, 
"  to  offer  you  his  thanks  and  his  prayers  ;  but  confiding  in  the 
merits  of  Jesus  Christ,  he  beseeches  God  to  take  his  father 
under  his  special  protection.  .  .  The  happiness  which  awaits 
us,  the  thought  of  heaven  which  we  already  approach,  make 
such  an  impression  on  my  soul  that  there  is  no  room  for  any 
other  desire.  Sinner  as  I  arn,  I  confide  in  the  merits  of  my 
Saviour  and  in  the  protection  of  the  Holy  Yirgin,  and  of  the 
blessed  martyrs  who  await  me  in  the  bosom  of  God.  I  salute 
you  for  the  last  time." 

Peter  Truat,  the  youngest  of  this  company  of  confessors,  in 
whom  some  sign  of  weakness  might  have  been  feared,  wrote 
thus :  u  Your  little  child  offers  you  a  thousand  salutations.  I 
am  overjoyed  at  having  been  predestined  lay  God  for  martyrdom. 
.  .  .  I  quit  life  without  regret.  The  only  pain  which  I  feel 
is  to  be  separated  from  my  father."  The  love  of  these  martyrs 
for  their  apostles  is  manifested  by  a  thousand  tender  expressions. 
"  Formerly  so  united,"  he  continues,  "  why  are  we  now  torn 
from  each  other  ?  Who  could  have  supposed  that  the  father 
and  the  brothers  would  be  thus  scattered  here  and  there  by  the 
tempest  ?  .  .  .  Your  son  will  not  fail  to  follow  the  salutary 
advice  which  you  have  given  him  how  to  conduct  himself  in 
his  last  moments."  He  then  alludes  to  the  noble  death  of  Father 
Cornay,  and  adds,  "  Pray,  while  your  son  is  in  the  combat,  that 
God  at  your  entreaty  may  grant  him  strength  in  the  midst  of 
his  trials,  and  a  death  like  that  of  his  Master."*  On  the  18th 
December,  1838,  "  the  prisoners  of  Jesus"  as  the  pagan  crowd 
called  them  on  their  way  to  the  stake,  received  their  crown. 
That  night,  their  bodies,  which  had  been  secretly  withdrawn  by 
the  aid  of  an  official,  were  buried  with  due  honor.  "  What 
joy,"  says  Father  Marette,  "for  me  to  see  again,  after  their 
triumph,  these  dear  children  whose  souls  had  just  taken  flight 
to  the  bosom  of  God  !  With  what  religious  satisfaction  I  kissed 
the  impression  which  the  instrument  of  death  had  left  on  their 
mangled  flesh  !"  Two  native  priests,  who  offered  the  holy 
sacrifice  in  presence  of  their  remains,  two  catechists,  five  re- 
ligious women,  and  about  thirty  of  the  faithful,  assisted  at  that 
midnight  scene.  And  then  Father  Marette  repaired  once  more 
to  his  hiding-place,  to  prepare  others  for  the  same  combat,  or  to 

*  Annals,  vol.  ii.,  p.  202. 


124:  CHAPTER   II. 

brave  it  himself  when  his  own  hour  should  come.    It  was  not 
far  distant.  * 

The  year  1838  was  a  terrible  one  for  the  Church  in  Cochin- 
China.  On  the  12th  of  June,  the  aged  Bishop  Ignatius  Delgado 
died  'in  prison  of  his  sufferings,  after  having  held  during  forty 
years  the  office  of  Vicar  Apostolic  in  Tong-King.  Thirteen 
days  later,  his  venerable  coadjutor,  Bishop  Dominic  Henarez  was 
led  to  martyrdom,  in  spite  of  his  gray  hairs,  after  an  apostolate 
of  forty-nine  years.  Ten  days  after  his  death,  Bishop  Havard, 
stretched  on  a  mat  in  a  wretched  cabin,  after  all  his  noble 
labors,  died  of  want  and  fatigue.  Fathers  Candahl  and  Vialle, 
who  had  long  been  hiding  in  caves  and  dens,  died  the  same 
death.  Father  Simonin  perished  in  his  flight  to  the  mountains. 
It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  Father  Candahl  twice  received  a 

fratuitous  passage  on  board  an  English  ship,  though  he  was 
nown  to  be  a  Catholic  missionary.  He  and  Father  Vialle  suc- 
ceeded in  entering  Tong-King  in  the  spring  of  1835,  passing 
through  perils  of  every  kind,  sometimes  shipwrecked,  often 
hiding  in  caves  and  mountains,  exhausted  by  hunger  and  thirst, 
their  feet  wounded  and  bleeding,  and  only  venturing  at  night 
to  the  sea-shore,  to  moisten  their  parched  lips  with  its  brine. 
And  this  life  they  led,  to  their  last  hour,  with  no  other  motive 
than  to  declare  to  aliens  and  strangers  the  name  of  that  Saviour 
for  whose  sake  they  cheerfully  embraced  such  a  career. 

But  the  year  1838  had  not  yet  reached  its  close,  and  wras  to 
be  consecrated  by  another  of  those  sublime  combats  in  which 
man  is  raised,  by  the  succor  of  Divine  grace,  to  the  dignity  of 
the  angels.  On  the  24th  of  November,  Bishop  Borie,  Vicar 
Apostolic  of  Western  Tong-King,  was  decapitated,  after  seven 
fruitless  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  executioner,  whom  the 
martyr  calmly  encouraged  in  his  task,  while  even  the  mandarins 
hid  their  faces  in  horror.  When  Bishop  Borie  refused,  at  his 
trial,  to  answer  certain  questions  addressed  to  him,  the  presiding 
judge  angrily  exclaimed,  "  When  your  flesh  is  torn  to  pieces 
with  iron  rods,  will  you  then  be  able  to  keep  silence  ?"  "  I 
shall  then  see  what  I  can  do,"  he  replied ;  "1  dare  not  flatter 
myself  before  the  trial."  In  his  prison  he  continued  to  preach 
Jesus  Christ  with  extraordinary  fervor.  "The  joy  which 
beamed  in  his  face,  notwithstanding  the  heavy  cangue  which 
weighed  down  his  shoulders,  excited  the  admiration  of  the 
pagans.  'This  master,'  they  were  heard  to  say,  'has  truly  a 
heart  for  teaching  religion;  if  hereafter  he  can  continue  to 
instruct,  us,  we  also  will  embrace  his  doctrine.'  "* 
The  Church  in  Cochin-China  had  lost  four  bishops  in  a  single 

*  Vol.  i.,  p.  551. 


MISSIONS   IN  CHINA.  125 

year.  Bishop  Cuenot,  upon  whom  the  mantle  of  the  martyred 
prelates  had  now  fallen,  and  who  was  destined  himself  to 
expire  in  prison,  while  under  sentence  of  death,  in  1861,  after 
an  apostolate  of  thirty -four  years,*  had  reason  to  say,  in  a  letter 
addressed  to  Europe,  "  Our  ranks  are  thinning  fast,  and  if  this 
deplorable  crisis  lasts,  our  poor  flock  will  soon  be  orphans." 
"  The  year  1838,"  said  the  Pro-Vicar  Apostolic,  at  the  same 
date,  "  has  been  a  year  of  sorrow  and  misery  for  Tong-King 
and  Upper  Cochin-China.  The  sword  of  persecution  has  com- 
mitted terrible  ravages,  and  heaven  has  been  peopled  with 
martyrs.  The  two  Dominican  bishops  of  Eastern  Tong-King 
were  beheaded  in  July.  Three  Spanish  fathers  of  the  same 
order  were  also  beheaded,  and  seven  native  priests  shed  their 
blood  for  Jesus  Christ." 

Their  disciples,  we  have  seen,  were  worthy  of  such  teachers. 
It  was  only  by  the  fervent  exhortations  of  apostles  endowed 
with  such  gifts,  that  timid  Asiatics,  hitherto  ignorant,  sordid, 
and  godless,  could  be  raised  to  such  sudden  perfection.  By  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  participation  of  the  Sacra- 
ments, they  had  found  strength  to  imitate  their  guides. 
"  Their  constancy,"  observes  Father  Marette,  who  had  so  often 
encouraged  and  witnessed  it,  and  whose  own  martyrdom  was 
now  at  hand,  "  is  the  more  worthy  of  admiration,  since  they 
are  neither  Europeans,  sustained  by  the  natural  vigor  of  their 
constitutional  character,  nor  apostles,  impatient  to  shed  their 
blood  for  the  Gospel,  but  cowardly  Asiatics,  whom  grace  alone 
has  converted  into  heroes."  "  Fool,"  said  a  mandarin  to  one 
of  the  lay  martyrs  of  this  year,  who  had  received  more  than 
five  hundred  lashes  in  forty  days,  "  why  are  you  so  obstinately 
bent  upon  dying?"  A  smile  was  his  only  answer;  and  when 
the  moment  of  his  martyrdom,  in  which  he  was  accompanied 
by  his  family  and  children,  arrived,  and  the  executioner  secret- 
ly offered  for  a  certain  sum  to  cut  off  his  head  at  one  stroke, — 
u  Cut  it  into  a  hundred  pieces,  if  you  like,"  said  the  martyr  : 
"  so  that  you  cut  it  off,  that  will  satisfy  me." 

It  was  the  contemplation  of  such  scenes  which,  as  in  the 
primitive  days,  continually  added  to  the  number  of  the  faithful. 
u  We  know,"  said  some  of  the  mandarins,  filled  with  involun- 
tary admiration  of  the  superhuman  virtues  displayed  by  their 
victims,  "  that  you  do  not  merit  death,  and  we  would  willingly 
save  you  ;  but  the  orders  of  the  king  do  not  permit  us  to  do  so. 
Pardon  us,  therefore,  if  we  are  compelled  to  take  away  your 

*  Among  other  productions  of  this  prelate  was  one  entitled,  The  Truth  of 
Christianity  explained  to  Pagans, "  an  excellent  work  in  four  volumes,  written 
in  a  style  of  such  elegance  and  perfect  knowledge  of  the  Annamite  language, 
that  it  would  seem  hardly  possible  to  be  the  work  of  a  foreign  pen." — Annals, 
vol.  xxiii.,  p.  259. 


126  CHAPTER   II. 

lives,  and  do  not  impute  this  crime  to  us."  Rarely  has  sin 
and  unbelief  offered  a  more  notable  homage  to  faith  and  virtue. 

But  we  must  hasten  to  an  end.  Every  year  in  succession 
witnessed  the  same  events,  and  was  illustrated  by  the  same 
triumphs.  We  cannot  recount  them  all.  In  1840,  according 
to  the  narrative  of  Father  Joseph  Clauzetto,  Pro-Vicar  General 
of  the  province  of  Hu-Quang,  Father  Perboyre,  a  French  Laz- 
arist,  was  martyred,  after  long  and  horrible  tortures.  "We 
were  tracked  as  beasts  of  the  chase,"  says  Father  Clauzetto, 
who  with  difficulty  escaped  ;  "  they  pursued  us,  poor  mission- 
aries, as  robbers,  though  we  have  no  other  feeling  towards 
these  Gentiles  than  that  of  charity,  no  other  wish  than  to  open 
to  them  the  gates  of  heaven."  Some  of  the  children  of  their 
school  were  cruelly  scourged  for  refusing  to  disclose  their  retreat, 
and  one  of  their  catechists  nobly  submitted  to  have  his  arm  cut 
off  rather  than  reveal  it.  In  every  direction  the  missionaries 
were  flying.  Father  Perboyre  was  caught  in  a  valley,  worn  out 
with  fatigue  and  famine.  "Thirty  piastres  to  any  one  who  will 
show  me  a  missionary  !"  cried  an  officer,  when  he  came  in  sight 
of  the  fugitive  group,  and  it  was  a  Christian  who  yielded  to  the 
temptation,  and  to  save  his  own  life  pointed  to  Father  Perboyre. 
The  missionary  was  conducted  in  triumph  from  tribunal  to 
tribunal,  and  cruelly  tortured  at  each.  New  forms  of  suffering 
were  invented  in  order  to  shake  his  constancy,  and  force  him  to 
disclose  the  residence  of  Bishop  Rameaux,  Vicar  Apostolic  of 
the  province  of  Kiang-Si,  whom  they  especially  desired  to  seize. 
When  their  efforts  were  baffled  by  his  inflexible  fortitude,  they 
offered  to  release  him  immediately  if  he  would  apostatize.  A 
Chinese  priest,  who  penetrated  in  disguise  to  his  dungeon,  re- 
ported that  "  his  whole  body  is  one  sore,  and  his  emaciation 
shocking  to  behold  :  he  has  hardly  strength  to  utter  a  few 
words ;  he  can  neither  sit  nor  stand ;  many  of  his  bones  are 
bare,  his  flesh  hangs  in  pieces,  and  his  clothes  are  soaked  in 
blood."  When  they  presented  a  crucifix  to  him,  desiring  him 
to  trample  on  it,  he  could  not  restrain  his  tears,  and  only  replied 
by  pressing  the  image  of  his  Saviour  to  his  lips  and  heart.  On 
the  llth  of  September,  1840,  after  one  of  the  most  painful  and 
protracted  martyrdoms  ever  endured  by  man,  he  entered  into 
his  rest. 

In  the  same  year,  Father  Torrette,  also  a  French  Lazarist, 
finished  his  career  ;  his  last  words  being  those  of  the  Apostle, 
Mihi  mori  lucrum,  "  To  me  to  die  is  gain."  This  year  saw  also 
the  death  of  Father  Luke  Loan,  a  native  priest,  whose  virtues 
were  so  much  venerated  even  by  the  pagans,  that  it  was  only 
by  offering  a  large  bribe  that  the  mandarins  could  procure  an 
executioner.  "  Sly  father,  I  bow  before  you,"  said  this  man, 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  127 

when  he  came  to  perform  his  task ;  "  if  it  depended  on  me 
alone,  you  should  live  in  peace ;  but  the  king's  will  must  be 
done,  and  I  cannot  resist  it.  Do  not,  I  beg,  impute  your  death 
to  me,  and  when  you  are  in  heaven  pray  for  me."* 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  these  examples,  which  alone 
furnish  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  astonishing  success  of 
the  missionaries.  Even  the  pagans  understood,  that  such  men 
must  be  supported  by  the  immense  power  of  God.  Even 
they  confessed  the  truth,  which  is  hidden  from  some  nominal 
Christians,  that  where  His  gifts  are,  there  He  is  Himself. 
"Truly,  this  Christian  religion,"  they  said,  "is  a  good  religion." 
They  judged  it  by  its  fruits.  It  was,  as  a  rule,  only  the  higher 
officers  of  the  State  who  willingly  persecuted  the  Christians,  and 
even  they  were  often  subdued  by  their  supernatural  patience 
and  fortitude.  In  the  persecution  which  followed  the  capture 
of  Father  Perboyre,  and  which  involved  a  vast  number  of 
Christians,  Father  Clauzetto  notices  particularly  the  case  of 
two  women,  a  young  girl  and  a  widow,  who  seem  to  have  pro- 
duced a  profound  impression  upon  their  judges,  and  even  upon 
the  viceroy  himself,  who  was  present  at  their  trial.  "  They 
boldly  confessed  Jesus  Christ,  often  repeating  to  their  judges, 
4  Cut  off  our  heads  if  you  will,  but  do  not  hope  to  make  us 
abandon  our  faith.'  The  mandarins  were  amazed;  the  firmness 
of  these  holy  women  gave  such  authority  to  their  words,  that 
the  persecutors,  after  hearing  their  defence  of  Christianity,  ac- 
knowledged that  they  had  nothing  to  reply.  On  beholding 
such  virtue,  they  dispensed  with  the  torture.  Some  pagans 
even  offered  them  presents,  as  a  testimony  of  esteem  and  ad- 
miration." And  this  feeling,  he  says,  became  general.  Even 
the  guards  of  the  Christian  prisoners  were  often  so  touched  by 
their  simple  dignity  and  unconquerable  virtue,  that,  "  instead 
of  ill-treating,  they  exhort,  they  supplicate:  'Why  do  you  per- 
sist in  suffering  ?'  they  asked  ;  '  is  there  so  much  harm  in  saying 
a  word,  or  making  a  sign,  in  order  to  please  the  mandarin  ? 
You  might  still  be  Christians  at  home.'  r  Sometimes  the  offi- 
cials filled  up  tickets,  declaring  their  apostasy,  and  when  the 
Christians  entered  the  court,  handed  them  to  the  judge,  who 
would  say,  "You  have  at  last  renounced  Christianity?"  And 
when  they  eagerly  replied,  "  No,  we  are  still  Christians ;"  "  Go, 
go,"  he  would  say ;  "  I  understand  ;  you  have  apostatized  ;  go 
home." 

Father  Francis  Tchiou,  a  Chinese  Lazarist,  relates  in  1840 
the  martyrdom  of  his  own  brother,  and  then  describes  the 
amazing  constancy  of  a  Christian  girl,  Anne  Kao,  a  victim  in 

*  Vol.  viii.,  p.  201. 


128  CHAPTER   II. 

the  same  persecution.  After  trying  her  by  various  torments, 
they  caused  her  to  be  brought  before  the  tribunal  when  she  was 
faint  with  hunger,  and  offering  her  food,  desired  her  to  eat  in 
token  of  apostasy.  Her  reply  deserves  our  attention,  not  only 
for  its  own  sake,  but  because  it  won  the  sympathy  and  admira- 
tion of  the  wrife  and  daughter  of  the  presiding  mandarin,  who 
openly  manifested  "  their  pity  for  this  Christian  virgin."  "  If  in 
your  eyes"  said  the  famished  girl,  "  it  is  apostasy  to  eat,  I  de- 
clare to  you  that  I  will  die  of  hunger,  rather  than  take  the 
smallest  portion  of  food  /  hut  if  you  see  in  it  only  an  indifferent 
or  ordinary  action,  I  will  eat"  "  You  are  an  obstinate  woman," 
replied  the  mandarin,  "eat  as  you  please."* 

If  we  still  linger  over  the  year  1840,  it  is  because  there  is  no 
more  famous  date  in  the  annals  of  Chinese  missions.  It  was  in 
this  year  that  Bishop  Retord,  who  so  long  ruled  the  Church  in 
Western  Tong-King,  announced  to  Europe  the  singular  change 
of  policy  which  was  then  inaugurated  in  Cochin-China,  but 
only  to  be  quickly  abandoned.  Weary  of  their  continual 
failures,  and  convinced  by  experience  that  the  slaughter  of 
the  Christians  only  increased  their  numbers, — they  have  more 
than  trebled  in  Cochin-China  during  this  century,  and  amount- 
ed before  the  persecution  now  raging  (1860)  to  more  than 
five  hundred  thousand, — the  pagan  authorities  resolved  for 
the  first  time  to  appeal,  not  to  the  passions,  but  to  the  reason 
of  their  countrymen.  Edicts  were  published  all  over  the 
country,  from  which  the  Bishop  quotes  such  passages  as  the 
following:  "In  order  to  instruct  and  undeceive  the  Chris- 
tians," all  governors  of  provinces,  subordinate  mandarins,  chiefs 
of  districts,  and  mayors  of  villages,  were  charged  to  address 
to  them  these  arguments :  "  This  Jesus,  the  author  of  your  re- 
ligion, is  a  man  of  a  distant  country,  and  of  a  race  different 

from  ours What  the  missionaries  teach  on  the  subject 

of  their  Cross,  to  which  a  little  child  is  attached,  is,  in  great 
part,  incomprehensible.  The  best  plan  is  not  to  believe  any 
thing  about  it. 

"  You  will  say,  that  you  observe  the  religion  of  Jesus  in  order 
to  go  to  heaven  after  your  death.  Do  you  see  what  has  hap- 
pened to  the  priests  Marchand  and  Cornay,  to  the  chiefs  Trum- 
Ilien  and  Trum-Hai  (Fathers  Fernandez  and  Henares)?  Have 
they  not  perished  miserably?  Has  not  their  punishment  been 
for  all  a  subject  of  compassion  and  terror?  Yet  these  four 
missionaries  observed  their  law  more  perfectly  than  the  people; 
but  this  has  not  prevented  their  unhappy  death.  And  these 
are  the  men  who  used  to  relate  to  the  crowd  such  fine  things 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  175. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  129 

about  their  future  destiny !  But  their  death  has  unveiled  the 
knavery  of  their  words !  To  speak  sincerely,  how  can  a  person 
ascend  to  heaven  when  he  no  longer  lives?" 

The  royal  edict  then  proceeds  to  notice  the  case  of  two 
apostates,  and  continues  thus:  "They  have  trampled  on  the 
cross ;  they  are  free,  and  await  in  peace  the  end  of  the  days 
which  Heaven  may  grant  them.  Acknowledge,  then,  on  which 
side  are  the  joys  of  paradise,  on  which  the  sufferings  of  hell. 
If  you  are  insensible  to  these  considerations,  if  you  continue  to 
assemble  in  order  to  pray  in  secret,  you  show  the  blindest  stu- 
pidity, and  the  most  criminal  obstinacy." 

Finally,  the  decree  ingeniously  observes,  "  Such  are  the  great 
thoughts  which  we  must  develop  for  the  Christians,  in  order 
to  enlighten  and  convert  them." 

If  these  arguments  were  less  effective  than  their  royal  author 
anticipated,  they  appear  at  least  to  have  been  faithfully  em- 
ployed by  his  officers.  They  were  met,  however,  on  the  part 
of  the  Christians,  by  other  arguments,  which  so  confounded 
the  mandarins,  that  it  was  not  long  before  they  abandoned 
logic  in  despair,  and  took  once  more  to  the  knife  and  the 
scourge.  Perhaps  a  single  example,  related  by  Bishop  Retord 
in  1840,  will  suffice  to  illustrate  the  effect  of  their  public  dis- 
cussions with  the  Christians. 

Father  Paul  Khoan,  an  Annamite  priest,  represented  on  this 
occasion  his  Christian  brethren,  being  brought  up  from  prison 
for  that  purpose,  while  a  mandarin  enjoying  the  confidence  of 
the  king  undertook  to  justify  the  superior  wisdom  of  his  mas- 
ter's philosophy.  It  is  true  that  the  Christian  advocate  hardly 
appeared  under  favorable  circumstances.  He  had  been  more 
than  a  year  in  a  Chinese  dungeon,  and  was  at  that  moment 
under  sentence  of  death.  Four  of  his  colleagues,  Chinese 
priests,  had  recently  been  martyred.  Fathers  Thomas  Du  and 
Dominic  Xuyen  had  been  horribly  tortured.  The  legs  of  the 
latter  "  were  burned  with  plates  of  red-hot  iron,  his  flesh  pierced 
with  sharp  points,  and  his  body  lacerated  with  scourging. 

They  drove  sharpened  irons  under  his  nails Amidst  such 

horrible  temptations,  the  two  venerable  priests  did  not  manifest 
a  moment's  weakness."  At  length  they  were  slain,  and  within 
a  few  days  Fathers  Peter  Thi  and  Andrew  Lung,  also  Chinese 
priests,  carne  to  the  same  end.  It  was  just  after  these  events 
that  Father  Khoan  was  brought  from  his  prison,  to  debate  with 
judges  who  had  always  this  final  argument  of  the  knife  in 
reserve,  if  he  should  be  so  imprudent  as  to  overcome  them  in 
discussion.  In  spite  of  these  discouragements,  Father  Khoan 
accepted  the  debate,  of  which  the  following  is  the  substance, 

10 


130  CHAPTER   II. 

though  we  are  obliged  for  the  sake  of  brevity  to  suppress  many 
details.* 

MANDARIN.  "The  king  loves  you,  because  you  are  a  native 
of  the  country.  If  he  has  sent  you  to  prison,  it  was  only  to 

five  you  the  opportunity  of  repentance.     He  authorizes  me  to 
ischarge  you,  if  you  trample  on  the  cross." 

PRIEST.  "  Your  kindness  affects  me,  and  it  gives  me  pain  to 
refuse  you.  I  have  only  to  beg  that  you  will  give  me  due 
notice  of  the  day  of  my  death,  that  I  may  arrange  my  affairs 
before  quitting  this  world." 

MANDARIN.  "  Yes,  I  will  inform  you  of  the  time.  But  you 
tremble  with  cold  out  there  in  the  court.  Drink  a  cup  of  tea, 
and  sit  by  me  on  this  mat.  I  feel  pity  for  you  !  What  pleas- 
ure you  would  give  me  by  trampling  on  the  cross !" 

PRIEST.  "I  have  reflected  well  upon  what  you  say  to  me,  but 
the  more  I  reflect,  the  more  I  feel  the  reasonableness  of  my 
religion,  and  my  obligation  to  observe  it  strictly  until  I  die.  If 
I  abandon  the  Gospel,  I  shall  avoid  death,  it  is  true  ;  and  I  can 
secretly  follow  my  religion  at  home,  as  Gia-Long,  the  father  of 
the  present  king,  wished  me  to  do ;  but  there  would  be  no  in- 
tegrity in  acting  thus.  I  should  be  unfaithful  to  the  Lord  of 
Heaven,  whom  I  have  adored  up  to  the  present  time,  and  I 
should  scandalize  those  to  whom  I  have  preached,  if  they  saw 
me  wanting  in  constancy  and  fidelity." 

,    MANDARIN  to  his  Officers.     "  You  hear  what  he  says.     How 
can  we  hope  to  conquer  the  firmness  of  such  a  man  ?" 

To  Father  Khoan.  "  I  was  already  persuaded  that  your 
resolution  was  immovable.  For  this  reason  I  examined  two  of 
your  disciples  first,  lest,  encouraged  by  your  example,  they 
should  imitate  you ;  but  my  plan  has  failed,  and  they  have 
shown  the  same  constancy  as  yourself.  Tell  me,  have  you  no 
wish  to  live  ?" 

PRIEST.  "  Mandarin,  if  you  spare  my  life,  I  will  return  you 
thanks,  for  who  does  not  love  life  ? 

"...  But  the  Christian,  in  dying  for  the  sake  of  his  Creator, 
will  obtain  a  more  valuable  recompense  in  heaven  than  the 
transient  life  of  this  world." 

MANDARIN.  "  That  is  very  well ;  but  how  do  you  know  there 
is  a  paradise  ?" 

PRIEST.  "The  sovereign  of  an  earthly  kingdon,  has  he  not 
distinctions  of  honor,  and  privileged  places  for  his  faithful 
servants?  Shall  the  Supreme  Master  of  heaven  and  earth 
have  none  with  which  to  reward  those  who  have  been  faithful 
to  him  unto  death  ?" 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  182. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  131 

MANDARIN.  "But  how  do  you  know  that  there  exists  a 
Master  of  heaven  ?" 

PRIEST.  "Great  mandarin,  the  universe  is  an  open  book 
which  teaches  it  clearly.  Consider  all  the  wonders  of  nature, 
and  you  will  easily  comprehend  that  there  is  a  Being  who  made 
them,  a  Lord  who  governs  them.  .  .  ." 

MANDARIN.  "What  you  say  is  true;  I  agree  to  it."  (To  the 
Officers.)  "  He  speaks  deliberately  and  with  calmness.  In 
truth,  what  he  says  is  very  fine.  He  is  not  an  ordinary  man. 
He  is  persuaded  that  there  is  a  paradise."  (To  Father  Khoan.) 
"  I  must  frankly  confess  that  in  hearing  you  speak  I  am  moved 
to  Compassion,  and  I  wish  I  could  save  you.  But  the  law  of 
the  kingdom  is  very  severe.  If  you  do  not  trample  on  the 
cross  you  will  be  sure  to  die.  .  .  .  But  enough ;  you  have 
convinced  me  ;  you  are  not  an  ordinary  man." 

Arid  then  they  sent  their  report  to  the  king,  and  shortly  after 
Father  Khoan  was  martyred. 

It  was  in  the  face  of  such  difficulties,  and  of  a  persecution 
which  never  relaxed,  that  Christianity  had  to  fight  its  way  in 
Cochin-China.  Yet  these  terrible  obstacles  only  insured  its 
triumph.  The  pagans  could  not  refuse  to  admire  the  pure 
lives  of  their  Christian  fellow-countrymen,  nor  the  mysterious 
heroism  of  their  death.  And  when  they  witnessed  the  martyr- 
dom of  priests  of  their  own  race,  they  openly  avowed  the  respect 
which  such  scenes  inspired,  like  the  mandarin  who  exclaimed 
at  the  death  of  the  Venerable  Peter  On,  "  Yes,  Peter  On  is 
truly  a  holy  person!" 

But  we  must  bring  the  history  to  an  end.  Every  martyrdom, 
whether  of  bishop,  priest,  or  layman,  only  produced  fresh  can- 
didates for  the  same  honor.  In  1841,  Bishop  Iletord  secretly 
consecrated  Father  Hermosilla,  "  in  a  cabin  thatched  with  straw, 
in  a  village  situated  on  the  edge  of  a  dense  forest,  so  that,  in 
case  of  imminent  danger,  we  might  take  refuge  in  it."  And 
then  the  new  bishop,  who  was  arrested  in  1861,  at  sixty-three 
years  of  age,  after  a  ministry  of  thirty-four  years,  started  for 
another  part  of  the  country  to  consecrate  a  third,  so  that  the 
Church  might  be  prepared  for  all  emergencies ;  "  for  in  these 
regions,"  says  Bishop  Retord,  "we  must  hasten  to  anoint  other 
foreheads  with  the  holy  chrism,  lest  our  own  head  should 
presently  fall  under  the  axe  of  the  executioner."'  In  1842, 
the  same  courageous  prelate,  for  he  still  survived,  could  say : 
"  Since  my  return  to  Tong-King,  I  have  already  consecrated 
two  bishops  and  eleven  priests.  We  have  at  present  but  one 
priest  less  than  before  the  persecution ;  for  in  proportion  as  heads 
Fall,  others  rise  up  to  blunt  the  sword  of  the  executioner." 

And  so  this  warfare  continued.     In  the  year  1844,  in  the 


132  CHAPTER   II. 

single  vicariate  of  Western  Tong-King,  one  thousand  two  hun- 
dred and  thirty-seven  adults  were  received  into  the  Church;  in 

1845,  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  twenty-eight;  and  in 

1846,  one  thousand  three  hundred  and  eight ;  being  an  addition 
of  nearly  four   thousand  persons   in    a   single  province  who 
deliberately  embraced  the  lot  of  the  Christians,  with  all  its 
terrible  penalties.     Between  1820  and  1858,  the  total  number 
of  converts  in  Tong-King  alone  was  one  hundred  and  forty 
thousand,  "an  increase  so  much  the  more  wonderful,  as  it  has 
been  accomplished  in  thirty-eight  years  of  atrocious  and  almost 
uninterrupted  persecution.     In  the  year  1854  alone  there  were 
five   thousand   three   hundred   and   seventy  adult   converts." 
Finally,  the  state  of  the  Annamite  church  in  1858  is  described 
in  the  following  almost  incredible  summary  :    There  were  at 
that  date,  in  spite  of  incessant  martyrdoms,  fourteen  bishops 
(in    addition  to   more  than   thirty  in    China  Proper) ;   sixty 
European  missionaries  ;  two  hundred  and  forty  native  priests  ; 
nine  hundred  clerical  students;  six  hundred  and  fifty  catechists; 
sixteen  hundred  native   nuns ;    and  five  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  Christians.     "  Our   Annamite   brethren,"   says   the 
annalist  of  this  marvellous  mission,  "  may  with  justice  repeat 
at  the  present  day  what  Tertullian  said  to  the  persecutors  of 
old  :  4  We  increase  in  proportion  as  you  cut  us  down.'  "* 

Yet  the  pagans,  unconscious  instruments  of  the  Evil  One, 
have  done  their  best  to  destroy  them.  In  1850,  the  village  of 
Ly-tou-pa,  near  the  city  of  Kiu-hien,  contained  two  hundred 
and  forty  inhabitants  who  were  all  Christians.  They  were  so 
remarkable  for  their  virtues,  that  even  the  pagans  in  the  neigh- 
boring villages  "proclaimed  aloud  that  the  inhabitants  of 
Ly-tou-pa  were  irreproachable."  The  mandarins  of  Kiu-hien 
thought  otherwise,  and  suddenly  appeared  in  the  doomed  village. 
The  houses  were  sacked  and  pillaged,  and  the  torture  of  the 
confessors  followed  next.  "  Will  you  renounce  your  religion?" 
cried  a  mandarin,  in  the  intervals  of  their  torment.  "JSTever," 
was  the  answer  of  all.  At  length  "  the  mouths  of  the  confes- 
sors were  full  of  blood,  and  they  were  unable  to  reply."  One 
voice  alone  was  heard  to  say,  "  Jesus  !  save  us  !"  "Oh!  they 
still  pray,"  exclaimed  the  mandarin  ;  "  strike,  strike,  kill  them  !" 
"  Their  jaws  are  crushed  ;  the  blood  gushes  from  their  mouths  ; 
their  hands  hang  paralyzed,  and  the  bloody  scourge  still  makes 
deep  gashes  along  their  backs."  Five  days  after  they  are 
brought  up  from  prison,  and  commanded  to  trample  on  the 
cross.  "  '  Mandarin,'  replied  one  of  them,  in  the  name  of  his 

*  Annals,  No.  119,  p.  58.  See  also,  for  an  authentic  record  of  the  principal 
details,  the  excellent  work  entitled,  Mission  de  la  Cochin-Chine,  et  du  Tonkin 
(Paris,  1858). 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  133 

companions,  '  it  is  useless  to  speak  to  us  of  apostasy.  We  are 
prepared  to  suffer  every  thing,  rather  than  renounce  our  faith. 
You  can  imprison,  exile,  or  decapitate  us,  if  you  think  n't,  but 
can  never  deprive  us  of  our  God.'  On  hearing  these  words,  the 
judge  struck  his  breast  with  bewilderment.  He  seemed  to 
say, '  Alas !  what  is  to  be  done  with  such  people  ?'  In  a  word,  he 
had  never  met  with  Christians."  The  letter  which  describes 
these  details  was  written  by  the  Pere  Bertrand,  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  from  the  city  of  Kiu-hien,  and  dated  the  23d  of 
August,  1850. 

The  same  triumphs  were  accomplished  in  China  Proper,  and 
with  the  same  results.  In  1848,  Bishop  Perrocheau  writes 
from  the  great  province  of  Su-tchuen,  in  the  very  heart  of 
China,  and  this  is  his  report :  "  In  spite  of  the  obstacles  which 
the  mandarins  oppose  to  the  conversion  of  the  infidels,  we  have 
admitted  twelve  hundred  and  eighty  neophytes  upon  the  roll 
of  catechumens,  and  baptized  eight  hundred  and  eighty-eight 
adults  within  the  year.  God  be  praised  !"  It  was  of  Bishop 
Perrocheau,  who  died  in  1861,  that  the  viceroy  of  Su-tchuen, 
a  cousin  of  the  emperor,  told  the  Abbe  Hue  that  he  knew  the 
very  house  in  which  he  lived ;  and  he  added,  "  I  have  not  dis- 
turbed him,  because  I  have  convinced  myself  that  he  is  a  vir- 
tuous and  charitable  man."* 

From  Nankin  Bishop  Maresca  reports,  almost  at  the  same 
date,  that  he  had  baptized  five  thousand  adults  in  the  course 
of  the  year,  and  between  fifteen  and  twenty  thousand  children, 
and  that  he  had  established  the  Stations  of  the  Cross  in  nearly 
three  hundred  different  localities. 

In  1851,  that  we  may  continue  the  history  to  the  present 
hour,  Father  Dnclos  died  in  prison,  and  Father  Augustiii 
Schoeffler,  a  French  missionary,  perished  on  the  scaffold.  As 
the  latter  went  to  the  place  of  execution,  a  placard  was  carried 
before  him  containing  these  words :  "  He  confessed  truly  the 
whole  charge  of  preaching  the  religion  of  Jesus.  His  crime 
is  patent.  Let  Mr.  Augustiii  be  beheaded,  and  cast  into  a 
stream." 

In  1852,  Father  Bonnard,  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  gained 
the  martyr's  crown.  "Trample  on  the  cross,"  they  said  to 
him,  "  or  you  shall  be  scourged  and  put  to  death."  "  I  have 
told  you,"  was  his  answer,  "  that  I  fear  neither  your  scourging 
nor  death.  I  did  not  come  here  to  deny  my  religion,  nor  to 
set  a  bad  example  to  the  Christians."  All  his  care  was  for  his 
disciples,  who  suffered  with  him,  and  who  imitated  his  apos- 
tolic courage.  His  last  letter  but  one  to  his  bishop,  a  confessor 

*  L'Empire  CMnois,  tome  i.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  51. 


134  CHAPTER   II. 

like  himself,  but  who  had  escaped  a  hundred  deaths,  contained 
these  words :  "  If  I  have  ever  given  your  Lordship  or  my  breth- 
ren any  offence  during  the  short  time  I  have  been  on  the  mis- 
sion, I  entreat  you  to  forgive  me.  Allow  me,  my  Lord  and 
Father,  to  cast  myself  in  spirit  at  your  feet,  to  ask  your  blessing." 
"You  have  never  offended  me  in  any  thing,"  replied  the  ven- 
erable prelate.  "  The  blessing  you  ask  I  have  given  you  ever 
since  your  first  arrival  in  the  mission.  .  .  .  When  you  are  in 
heaven,  bless  us  in  your  turn."  In  his  final  letter  the  martyr 
says,  "  On  the  eve  of  my  death,  April  30th,  1852,  I  place  my 
trust  in  the  mercy  of  Jesus.  I  have  the  sweet  hope  that  He  has 
pardoned  my  innumerable  offences.  Should  I  be  able  to  move 
the  sovereign  goodness  of  God  in  your  favor,  rest  assured  that  I 
will  not  forget  you.  I  die  contented.  Praise  be  to  the  Lord  ! 
Farewell  to  all  in  the  sacred  hearts  of  Jesus  and  Mary.  In 
manus  tuas,  Domine,  commendo  spiritum  meum." 

The  bishop  addressed  the  victim,  whom  he  could  not  ven- 
ture to  approach,  in  these  words :  "  I  am  jealous  at  seeing  you 
depart  before  me  for  the  heavenly  kingdom,  by  the  shortest 
and  safest  road,  while  I  am  still  left  to  be  tossed  on  this  stormy 
sea.  I,  your  bishop,  the  old  captain  who  have  seen  twenty 
years'  service  in  a  strange  land,  should  not  I  have  been 
crowned  before  you  ?  How  dare  you  thus  supplant  me  ?  But 
I  forgive  you,  because  such  is  the  will  of  God.  .  .  .  Depart, 
then,  in  peace,  favored  child  of  Providence.  I  envy  you, 
indeed,  but  with  the  envy  of  love,  with  the  jealousy  of  tender- 
ness. How  happy  are  you !  You  are  about  to  join  the  Bories, 
the  Cornays,  the  Schcefflers,  and  all  the  other  apostles  and 
martyrs  of  this  mission.  How  great  will  be  their  joy  to  see 
you  admitted  into  their  glorious  company  !" 

He  went  on  foot  to  the  place  of  execution,  the  heavy  cangue 
round  his  neck,  and  holding  up  his  chain  with  one  hand.  They 
had  bound  him  so  tightly  that  the  blood  oozed  from  his  fingers. 
He  was  finally  decapitated,  and  then  cast  into  a  river.  That 
night  his  body  was  recovered,  and  the  bishop  recited  over  him. 
in  a  whisper  the  last  offices  of  the  Church.  His  clothes,  covered 
with  blood,  and  even  his  hair,  were  sold  in  pieces  by  the  pagans 
to  the  Christians,  who  desired  to  possess  the  relics  of  a  martyr. 

In  the  same  year,  1852,  Bishop  Louis  de  Castellazzo  writes 
from  the  province  of  Chan-Tong,  that  in  nine  years  he  had 
built  twenty-two  churches,  some  of  wrhich  were  capable  of 
holding  six  hundred  persons. 

Still  in  the  same  year,  Bishop  Rizzolati,  Yicar  Apostolic  of 
Hou-Kouang,  describes  the  tortures  inflicted  upon  Father 
Andrew  Koung,  a  Chinese  priest,  who  was  superior  of  the 
college  of  Hou-pe,  and  who  received  three  hundred  blows  at 


MISSIONS    IN    CHINA.  135 

once.  He  was  known  to  be  still  alive  in  his  dungeon  in  the 
following  year. 

In  1853,  Bishop  Lefebre  reported  to  Europe  the  noble  confes- 
sion and  death  of  Father  Philip  Minh,  also  a  Chinese  priest,  and 
conspicuous  among  his  colleagues  for  ability  and  prudence. 
When  brought  before  the  tribunal,  he  uttered  this  prayer,  worthy 
of  one  of  the  primitive  saints :  u  My  God,  since  it  has  pleased 
Thee  to  subject  Thy  humble  and  unworthy  servant  to  this  trial, 
I  beseech  Thee  to  grant  me  grace  and  fortitude  to  pass  victorious 
through  the  contest  in  which  I  have  engaged.  Inspire  me  with 
words  of  wisdom  and  prudence,  that  I  may  answer  the  magis- 
trates with  becoming  fortitude."  When  they  desired  him  to 
trample  upon  a  crucifix  placed  on  the  ground  before  him,  and  he 
had  calmly  refused,  "the  mandarins  ordered  the  satellites  to  drag 
him  over  it.  They  accordingly  seized  the  chain  with  which  he 
was  loaded,  and  pulled  him  with  all  their  force ;  but  the  fervent 
confessor  sat  down,  resisting  their  efforts  with  the  whole  weight 
of  his  body,  and  their  attempt  was  consequently  unsuccessful. 
The  magistrates  no  longer  insisted  upon  the  act,  but  proceeded 
to  draw  up  the  sentence."  On  the  3d  of  July  he  was  martyred. 
While  in  prison,  even  the  pagan  soldiers  were  heard  to  deplore 
his  fate,  and  when  the  last  act  was  over,  the  bystanders  said 
aloud,  "The  good  priest  has  gone  to  heaven."  His  head  was 
cast  into  a  river,  but  recovered  by  a  Christian,  and  secretly 
buried  with  his  body. 

In  1856,  Father  Huong  met  the  same  fate  with  the  same  forti- 
tude and  joy.  The  details  were  described  in  that  year  by  Father 
Galy,  a  French  missionary,  who  had  himself  been  condemned 
to  death  fifteen  years  earlier,  but  was  afterwards  liberated.  In 
1854,  he  seemed  again  on  the  point  of  martyrdom,  and  wrote 
thus :  "  If  I  am  seized,  what  happiness  !  At  length  the  axe  will 
no  longer  spare  me.  As  a  relapsed  offender,  no  indulgence  will 
be  granted  me."  And  when  a  little  later  the  same  generous 
priest,  in  whom  the  prospect  of  martyrdom  only  excited  joy  and 
gratitude,  heard  of  the  arrest  and  subsequent  liberation  of  Bishop 
llermosilla,  he  observed  'in  one  of  his  letters,  "  I  imagine  that 
he  will  not  feel  much  obliged  to  his  people  for  the  sum  they  paid 
for  his  deliverance,  when  his  first  wish  was  to  die  the  death  of  a 
martyr.  The  pity  of  our  friends,  however  well  intended,  is 
sometimes  fatal  to  us." 

It  was  also  in  1856,  on  the  29th  of  February,  that  Father 
Chapdelaine  was  martyred,  in  the  province  of  Quang-tong.  He 
had  a  few  days  before  been  tortured,  and  had  received  one 
hundred  blows  on  the  face,  so  that  his  jaws  were  completely 
smashed.  He  was  carried  back  to  prison,  frightfully  mutilated, 
and  unable  to  move  hand  or  foot;  yet  a  moment  after,  to  the 


136  CHAPTER   II. 

astonishment  of  all  who  saw  him,  "  he  rose  up,  and  began  to 
walk,  as  if  in  perfect  health."  When  his  guards  asked  him  to 
tell  them  privately  how  it  was  possible  that  he  should  be  able 
to  walk,  "  the  Father  answered  with  a  smile,  It  is  because  our 
good  God  has  protected  and  blessed  me."* 

Every  year  in  succession  witnessed  the  same  combats,  in  which 
Europeans  and  natives,  priests  and  laymen,  men  and  women, 
fought  the  good  fight,  and  yielded  up  their  lives  in  testimony  of 
the  faith.  The  year  1857  was  distinguished  by  confessions  as 
remarkable  as  any  in  this  long  catalogue.  On  the  3 1st  of  January, 
a  native  priest  and  four  Christians  were  beheaded.  On  the 
following  day,  eleven  neophytes  shared  the  same  fate ;  and  two 
days  after,  ten  others,  all  in  the  same  town.  On  the  6th  of 
April,  Father  Paul  Tinh,  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven,  was  beheaded. 
As  he  was  led  to  execution,  the  grand  mandarin  took  him  aside, 
and  assuring  him  of  his  esteem,  offered  him  his  life  if  he  would 
renounce  his  religion.  "  Grand  mandarin,"  he  replied,  "  my 
body  is  in  your  hands ;  do  what  you  like  with  it ;  but  my  soul 
belongs  to  God ;  nothing  can  induce  me  to  sacrifice  it  to  the  king's 
pleasure."  The  martyrdoms  continued  through  April  and  May, 
and  on  the  20th  of  July,  the  Spanish  Bishop  Diaz,  after  a  long 
and  fruitful  apostolate,  was  beheaded  in  his  turn.  In  1858, 
his  head  was  recovered  by  some  Christian  fishermen,  and 
brought  to  Bishop  Melchior,  who  was  himself  destined  to  a 
still  more  terrible  martyrdom. 

In  1859,  Father  Paul  Loc  was  martyred  at  Saigon,  three 
days  before  the  arrival  of  the  French  expedition,  of  which  the 
temporary  failure  has  only  increased  the  afflictions  of  the 
Christians.  In  this  year  the  faith  of  the  lay  confessors  was 
especially  tried.  Four  hundred  were  seized  at  once  in  one 
place.  John  Hoa,  the  chief  of  a  village,  a  man  respected  even 
by  the  pagans  for  his  virtuous  life,  was  tempted  by  the  mandarin 
with  flattering  words :  "  Your  fault  is  not  a  crime,  but  I  must 
request  you  to  trample  on  the  cross,  that  I  may  place  you  at  the 
head  of  your  district.  You  are  a  distinguished  subject.  What 
is  the  use  of  manifesting  this  obstinacy  in  degrading  yourself, 
and  why  should  you  expose  yourself  to  the  torture  ?"  "  Let 
me  die,  rather  than  renounce  my  religion,"  was  his  only  answer. 

u  Will  you  agree  to  trample  on  the  cross,  that  I  may  discharge 
you  ?"  said  a  mandarin  to  Martha  Lanh,  the  superioress  of  a 
native  religious  community.  "  It  is  better  to  die,"  she  replied, 
"than  to  be  unfaithful  to  God;"  when  the  heathen  judge 
ordered  her  to  be  smitten  on  the  mouth,  and  to  receive  twenty- 
nine  lashes  with  an  iron  rod.  She  received  eighteen  more 

*  Annals,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  346. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  137 

lashes  at  a  second  examination,  fourteen  at  a  third,  and  thirty- 
eight  at  a  fourth  ;  yet  a  month  after  she  was  still  alive.* 

When  Elizabeth  Ngo  refused  in  the  same  year  to  put  her  foot 
on  a  cross  which  they  had  placed  on  the  floor,  and  being  cruelly 
scourged  called  aloud  upon  Jesus  and  Mary,  the  mandarin 
ironically  said,  "  Yery  well,  call  upon  your  Jesus,  and  let  him 
endure  the  torture  in  your  place."  At  a  third  examination,  the 
mandarin,  furious  at  being  baffled  by  a  woman,  lost  all  self- 
possession,  and  commanded  her  to  be  flogged  to  death.  She 
received  one  hundred  and  fifteen  blows,  when  the  executioner 
stopped,  and  exclaimed,  "She  is  dead!"  "  Unbind  her,"  said 
the  mandarin,  resolved  to  triumph  at  least  over  her  corpse, 
u  and  drag  her  upon  the  cross."  At  this  order  she  seems  to 
have  recovered  for  a  moment  her  consciousness,  and  "  doubling 
up  her  legs,  she  held  off  the  cangue  with  one  hand,  to  prevent 
strangulation,  while  with  the  other  she  seized  the  sign  of  our 
Redemption,  and  raising  it  in  the  air,  as  a  trophy  of  her  victory 
and  pledge  of  salvation,  she  cried  out, c  God  be  praised  !' ': 

The  Christians  of  China,  then,  from  the  days  of  Ricci  to  the 
present  hour,  have  been  ever  the  same.  We  have  noticed  only 
some  of  the  more  prominent  incidents  of  their  warfare,  because 
it  was  impossible  to  mention  them  all.  A  few  have  apostatized 
under  their  torments,  but  others  have  hastened  to  seize  the  palm 
of  which  they  had  proved  themselves  unworthy.  In  1805,  after 
more  than  forty  years  of  abandonment,  Sir  George  Stauiiton 
estimated  the  Christians  of  China  Proper  at  two  hundred 
thousand,  f  In  1840,  Commodore  Read  reported  that  "  there 
are  not  less  than  five  hundred  and  eighty-three  thousand 
Catholic  converts  at  this  time.":):  In  1859  there  were  five 
hundred  and  thirty  thousand  in  Cochin-China  alone  ;§  besides 
forty  thousand  in  the  city  of  Pekiu, — eighty  thousand  in  the 
diocese  of  Nankin, || — one  hundred  thousand  in  the  province  of 
Su-tchuen,^f — sixty  thousand  in  the  district  of  Shang-hae,~x"* 
forty  thousand  in  the  diocese  of  Fukien,ff — sixteen  thousand  in 
Corea, — ten  thousand  in  Mongolia, — nine  thousand  in  Thibet, — 
about  the  same  number  in  Mantchooria,JJ  and  many  in  Tartary, 
amounting  probably  in  the  aggregate  to  more  than  a  million. 

*  Annals,  No.  123. 
f  Laws  of  China,  p.  176,  note. 

j  Around  the  World,  by  Commodore  George  Read,  vol.  ii.,  p.  230. 
§  Annals,  No.  119,  p.  58. 

|  Souvenirs  d'une  Ambassade  en  Chine  et  au  Japon,  par  le  Marquis  de  Moges, 
ch.  vii.,  p.  181  (1860). 

Tf  L'Empire  Chinois,  tome  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  333. 

**   Visit  tc  the  Consular  Cities  of  China,  by  Rev.  George  Smith,  M.A.,  p.  140. 
t  Five  Years  in  China,  ch.  xi.,  p.  184  (1848). 
Ravenstein,  x.,  112. 


138  CHAPTER   II. 

And  the  increase  of  pastors,  in  spite  of  incessant  martyrdoms, 
has  kept  pace  with  that  of  disciples.  In  1859,  there  were 
fifty-one  bishops,  and  six  hundred  and  twenty-four  European 
and  native  priests,  the  latter  numbering  four  hundred  and 
twenty-eight.  There  were  also  eighteen  ecclesiastical  colleges. 
Finally,  the  number  of  Chinese  women  who  have  embraced  the 
religious  life  in  the  order  of  St.  Dominic  is  so  great,  that  a  few 
years  ago  a  special  persecution  "was  directed  against  the 
Chinese  TertiariesJ*'*  and  "  whole  families  were  united  in  the 
fellowship  of  the  order." 

And  now  we  may  conclude.  Other  victims  have  indeed 
been  immolated,  whose  names,  as  well  as  the  manner  of  their 
death,  are  known  to  us ;  and  probably  many  more  of  whom 
we  shall  never  hear.  In  the  first  half  of  1859,  fourteen  priests 
had  been  arrested  almost  simultaneously,  of  whom  ten  are 
known  to  have  been  strangled  or  decapitated.  In  1861,  we 
have  already  heard  of  the  death  or  captivity  of  nearly  thirty  new 
victims,  all  of  the  ecclesiastical  order.  Three  bishops,  at  least, 
have  been  added  to  the  army  of  martyrs.  The  Dominican  bishop 
Melchior,  the  successor  of  Bishop  Diaz,  was  literally  hacked  to 
pieces.  "  Five  executioners,"  says  the  narrative  of  his  martyr- 
dom in  the  Hong-Kong  Register,  "  commenced  their  frightful 
duty.  They  were  armed  with  a  kind  of  bill-hook,  or  hatchet, 
purposely  blunted,  in  order  to  inflict  greater  suffering.  They 
commenced  by  cutting  off  the  legs  above  the  knees,  each  limb 
receiving  about  twelve  blows  before  it  was  severed.  The  same 
process  was  repeated  with  the  arms."  Finally,  they  tore  out 
his  bowels,  but  "  as  long  as  strength  remained,  he  ceased  not 
to  call  on  the  name  of  Jesus."  His  head  was  afterwards 
crushed  to  fragments,  arid  thrown  into  the  sea. 

In  the  same  year,  the  Abbe  Yenard  was  martyred  in  Western 
Tonquin.  His  executioner,  a  man  of  experience,  had  previously 
decapitated  four  priests  on  the  same  day,  the  25th  of  March, 
1860 ;  and  when  he  asked  what  this  new  victim  would  give  to 
have  his  head  taken  off  at  one  blow,  the  martyr  only  replied, 
"  The  longer  it  lasts,  the  better  for  me."  "  We  shall  meet  again 
before  the  tribunal  of  God,"  were  his  last  words  to  his  pagan 
judges,  when  they  pronounced  their  sentence.  "His  zeal," 
observes  his  bishop,  in  reporting  his  death,  "  was  wonderful." 
For  eighteen  months  prior  to  his  death  he  had  evangelized  the 
heathen  village  of  Bat-Dong,  and  with  such  fruits,  that  when 
a  mandarin,  immediately  after  his  martyrdom,  to  whom  he  had 
said,  before  the  whole  court,  "  Jesus  Christ  can  easily  overcome 
you,  as  He  has  overcome  so  many  others,"  hastened  to  the 

*  Life  of  St.  Dominic,  ch.  vii.,  p.  365  (1857). 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  139 

village,  "  to  make  the  inhabitants  trample  on  the  cross,"  this 
was  the  result :  "  The  entire  population  was  unanimous  in 
refusing  to  apostatize,  and  the  mandarin  was  obliged  to  retreat 
before  these  six  hundred  united  Christians,  though  he  has  since 
published  edict  upon  edict  against  them."  And  it  is  of  such 
disciples  as  these,  who  convert  their  heathen  neighbors  by  the 
example  of  their  evangelical  virtues,  and  cleave  to  the  faith  amid 
the  sharpest  trials  which  can  assail  it,  that  Protestant  writers 
affect  to  speak  with  contempt !  The  Abbe  Venard  left  behind 
him  an  Annamite  translation  of  the  Concordantia  fivangdica, 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  the  whole  of  the  Epistles,  the  Apoca- 
lypse, and  unfinished  portions  of  other  sacred  Scriptures.* 

In  1862,  the  effects  of  the  French  treaty  of  1860  began  to  be 
felt  in  some,  but  only  in  some,  of  the  provinces  of  China.  It 
was  in  this  year  that  Bishop  Anouilh,  vicar  Apostolic  of  West- 
ern Pe-tche-li,  obtained  through  the  influence  of  the  French 
legation  the  imperial  palace  in  the  city  of  Tching-ting-fou  as  a 
site  for  his  cathedral,  seminary,  orphanage,  and  schools.  The 
effect  of  this  unexampled  incident  upon  the  popular  mind  is 
thus  described  by  the  venerable  prelate  :  "  The  eclat  of  such  a 
donation  is  immense,  and  equal  in  itself  to  several  imperial  de- 
crees." "I  have  been  travelling,"  he  adds,  in  recounting  "the 
marvellous  results  of  our  lately  acquired  liberty,"  "during 
many  months,  not  only  through  my  old  Christian  congrega- 
tions, but  into  many  towns  and  villages  where  the  Name  of 
the  Lord  was  hitherto  unknown.  Nearly  always  I  preach  in 
the  public  places,  in  the  streets,  all  but  on  the  house-tops.  I 
preach,  not  in  presence  of  a  few  individuals,  but  to  immense 
masses  of  people.  .  .  .  Sometimes,  at  nightfall,  I  was 
ready  to  sink  with  fatigue,  and  quite  incapable  of  uttering  an- 
other word ;  but  my  audience  were  still  all  anxiety  to  hear  me. 
Next  day  I  began  as  before.  God  blessed  my  efforts,  and  in 
the  course  of  fifteen  days  the  number  of  conversions  which  took 
place  exceeded  three  thousand.  .  .  .  Nine  villages,  with 
nearly  every  one  of  their  inhabitants,  have  come  over  to  us ; 
and  in  more  than  twenty  others  numerous  families  broke  their 
idols,  and  declared  their  determination  henceforth  to  adore  only 
the  Sovereign  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth." 

On  the  19th  of  April,  1862,  the  same  apostolic  missionary 
writes  as  follows  :  "  Before  I  left  Pekin,  whither  I  went  to  con- 
secrate the  holy  oils  for  the  three  northern  provinces  of  the 
empire,  I  baptized  one  hundred  and  twenty  converts,  most  of 
whom  made  their  iirst  communion,  and  were  confirmed  the  same 
day.  On  my  return"  (to  his  own  diocese)  "  I  poured  the  water 

*  Annals,  vol.  xxiii.,  pp.  266-70. 


140  CHAPTER  II. 

of  regeneration  on  the  heads  of  several  hundred  adults,  who  had 
prepared  themselves  for  the  sacrament  of  baptism  with  great 
ardor.  At  this  moment  I  have  twenty  catechists  occupied  in 
instructing  my  thousands  of  catechumens,  and  they  are  far  from 
sufficiently  numerous  to  carry  on  this  severe  labor,  for  there  are 
eighty  new  villages  just  converted  to  Christianity"* 

But  this  bright  picture  has  another  and  a  darker  side.  If 
religion  is  renewing  its  peaceful  triumphs  in  some  of  the  prov- 
inces subject  to  the  authority  of  the  imperial  government,  it  is 
still  only  by  the  blood  of  martyrs  that  it  gains  them  in  others. 
It  was  almost  at  the  same  moment  in  which  Bishop  Anouilh 
was  reporting  his  tranquil  successes,  that  Bishop  Faurie,  Yicar 
Apostolic  of  Kouy-Tcheou,  was  thus  recounting  victories  of  an- 
other kind :  "  The  blood  of  martyrs  has  been  flowing  in  our 
province.  The  Abbe  Jean  Pierre  Neel,  a  missionary  from  the 
archdiocese  of  Lyons,  together  with  four  lay  assistants,  were 
slain  in  the  chief  city  of  that  province,  on  that  17th  of 
February."  Father  Neel  had  been  only  two  months  at  Kia- 
cha-loung,  "the  latest  theatre  of  his  zeal,"  and  had  already 
made  more  than  a  hundred  converts.  The  Chinese  general, 
Tien-ta-jen,  a  disreputable  adventurer,  since  disgraced,  affect- 
ing to  regard  the  disciples  of  Father  Neel  as  rebels,  instigated 
the  mandarin  Tay-lou-tche  to  slaughter  them.  One  catechist 
escaped.  "  Walking  night  and  day,"  says  the  bishop,  "  with- 
out tasting  food,  until  he  reached  me,  he  threw  himself  on  his 
knees,  exclaiming,  '  Glory  be  to  God,  father,  we  have  martyrs 
again !'"  The  bishop's  narrative  terminates  with  these  words : 
"At  the  moment  that  the  Abbe  Neel's  head  rolled  on  the 
ground,  a  bright  cloud  is  said  to  have  descended  rapidly  from 
the  heavens,  and  having  remained  a  few  moments  over  his 
body,  it  disappeared.  The  pagan  crowd  were  seized  with  fear, 
the  executioner  more  than  all ;  and  we  have  since  been  informed 
by  pagans  who  came  to  tell  us  the  news,  that  this  chief  is  still 
greatly  troubled  in  mind,  and  now  believes  that  he  was  guilty 
of  a  very  wicked  action.  I  shall  test  the  authenticity  of  this 
miraculous  cloud  very  strictly,  though  it  in  no  way  surprises 
any  one  who  knew  the  Abbe  Neel.  He  was  indeed  a  saint."f 

And  still  others  come  forth,  day  by  day,  to  fill  the  place 
of  the  departed,  and  desire  to  be  clothed  with  the  blood  stained 
mantle  which  covered  them  in  the  days  of  their  mortal  toil. 
Still  the  Church  offers  her  noblest  children  to  God,  and  till  the 
hour  of  His  second  coming  will  never  cease  to  provide  for  sac- 
rifice the  appointed  victims,  "who  are  to  be  slain,  even  as  they." 
In  the  first  nine  months  of  1861,  and  in  two  only  of  the  dioceses 

*  P.  318.  t  p-  332. 


MISSIONS   IN  CHINA.  141 

of  Annam,  there  were  sixteen  thousand  martyrs,  and  nearly 
twenty  thousand  Christians  condemned  to  perpetual  slavery. 
In  every  town  lately  captured  by  the  French,  the  Christians 
were  found  to  have  been  gathered  together  and  burned  alive. 
Five  hundred  calcined  bodies  were  thus  discovered  in  one  pit. 
But  we  have  heard  enough.  Every  region  of  the  earth  will 
furnish  in  turn  the  same  scenes  to  our  contemplation,  and  the 
vastness  of  the  field  which  we  have  still  to  traverse  admonishes 
us  not  to  linger  on  the  way.  In  China,  during  three  hundred 
years,  from  the  first  hour  to  the  last,  we  have  found  the  Catholic 
missionaries  ever  the  same,  and  have  seen  them  do  what  man 
cannot  do  by  his  own  strength,  nor  has  ever  attempted  to  do 
but  by  the  inspiration  of  God  and  the  counsels  of  the  Church. 
She  has  proved  herself  to  be  in  the  nineteenth  century  what 
she  was  in  the  first ;  and  the  powers  of  darkness  are  obliged  to 
confess,  that  she  can  send  forth  apostles  now,  and  build  up 
disciples,  who  are  no  other,  in  their  faith  and  charity,  in  the 
holiness  of  their  life  and  the  majesty  of  their  death,  than  the 
men  who  shared  the  toils  of  St.  Peter,  or  gathered  wisdom  from 
the  lips  of  St.  Paul.* 

*  No  allusion  was  made  in  a  former  edition  of  this  work  to  the  well-known  con- 
troversy between  the  Jesuits  and  Dominicans,  on  the  subject  of  the  rites  cele- 
brated annually  by  the  Chinese  in  honor  of  their  ancestors.  For  the  sake  of 
brevity,  this  incident,  and  many  others  which  would  require  to  be  noticed  in  a 
complete  history  of  Chinese  missions,  was  suppressed.  There  could  be  no  other 
reason  for  omitting  to  discuss  an  event  which,  in  all  its  aspects,  reflects  equal 
honor  upon  the  Holy  See  and  upon  the  Society  of  Jesus. 

1.  The  dispute  turned,  not  upon  any  question  of  Faith,  which  among  Catholics 
is  happily  impossible,  but  solely  upon  a  question  of  fact,  with  respect  to  which 
even  the  Vicar  of  Christ  claims  no  infallibility. 

2.  The  Holy  See  had  long  before  instructed  the  missionaries  to  suppress  no  rites 
or  customs  of  the  heathen  which  were  not  manifestly  at  variance  with  the  spirit 
of  the  Gospel.  "  Nulla  ratione  suadete  illis  populis,  ut  ritus  suos,  consuetudines, 
et  mores  mutent,  ne  sint  apertissime  religioni  et  bonis  moribus  contraria." — 
Histoire  Apologetique  de  la  Conduite  desJesuites  de  la  Chine,  p.  5  (1700). 

3.  The  Jesuits  had  employed  eighteen  years,  with  their  customary  prudence, 
in  endeavoring  to  ascertain,  from  every  authority  whom  it  was  possible  to  con- 
sult, whether  the  rites  alluded  to  were  in  their  nature  civil  or  religious.     From 
all  they  received  the  same  reply.    The  Emperor,  who  perfectly  understood  the 
grounds  of  their  solicitude  ;  Mandarins  of  all  orders,  both  Christian  and  pagan ; 
Literates,  and  members  of  various  tribunals,  who  were  especially  conversant 
with  such  points ;  and  lastly,  the  most  virtuous  and  enlightened  of  their  own 
disciples,  concurred  in  the  declaration  that  these  rites  were  purely  civil. 

4.  The  Dominicans,  moved  only  by  the  zeal  for  religion  which  has  always  dis- 
tinguished that  illustrious  order,  but  perhaps  less  favorably  placed  for  judging 
the  question,  refused  to  allow  their  converts  to  take  any  part  in  this  national 
observance.     Upon  this,  the  matter  was  referred  to  Rome. 

5.  The  sentence  of  Innocent  X.,  which  was  necessarily  provisional,  disallowed 
the  observance  in  question, "  till  the  Holy  See  should  determine  otherwise."  But 
this  first  brief  inspired  by  religious  precaution,  was  modified  by  Alexander  VII., 
and  again  by  Clement  IX.,  whose  decisions  left  the  matter,  in  effect,  to  the  con- 
science of  each  individual  Christian,  according  to  the  precept  of  St.  Paul, "  to  him 


142  CHAPTER  II. 


PART  II. 


PROTESTANT  MISSIONS. 


AND  now  we  have  to  exhibit  the  first  example  of  that  instruc- 
tive Contrast  of  which  every  part  of  the  earth  will  furnish  a 
new  one,  and  which  it  is  the  main  purpose  of  these  volumes  to 
trace,  in  every  land  in  which  the  Church  and  the  Sects  have 
confronted  each  other.  What  the  Church  can  do,  we  have  seen ; 
let  us  ask  the  Sects  to  unfold,  in  their  turn,  the  secrets  of  their 
annals.  The  day  has  at  length  arrived  when  we  can  apply  to 
them  the  formidable  test,  J?y  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. 
And  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  will  shrink  from 
the  trial.  Protestantism  has  not  usually  worn  a  timid  or 
modest  front.  Its  voice  has  hitherto  been  loud  and  menacing, 
and  in  its  passage  through  the  north  and  west  of  Europe  it  has 
affected  the  mien  of  a  conqueror  rather  than  of  a  suppliant. 

that  esteemeth  any  thing  to  be  unclean,  to  him  it  is  unclean.  .  .  .  Blessed  is 
he  that  condemneth  not  himself  in  that  which  he  alloweth." — Rom.  xiv. 

The  case  calls  for  few  observations.  However  prejudicial  the  controversy 
may  have  been  for  a  season  to  the  progress  of  the  missions,  because  it  betrayed 
to  the  heathen  for  the  first  time  a  difference  of  opinion  in  their  Christian  teach- 
ers, it  is  impossible  not  to  admit  that  it  reveals,  on  the  part  of  all  concerned, 
the  purest  zeal  and  the  most  perfect  abnegation  of  self. 

The  Holy  See  was  willing  to  peril  the  loss  of  a  whole  empire,  which  seemed 
every  year  to  approach  more  nearly  the  epoch  of  its  conversion,  rather  than  even 
run  the  risk  of  sanctioning  a  doubtful  observance. 

The  Dominicans,  moved  by  the  same  spirit,  refused  to  accept  a  responsibility 
which  conscientious  motives  urged  them  to  decline. 

The  Jesuits,  though  convinced  that  the  first  judgment  was  a  mistake,  ac- 
cepted it  with  that  unfaltering  obedience  of  which  they  were  ever  the  most 
perfect  models.  "  The  brief,"  said  one  of  their  lay  members,  writing  from 
Pekin,  "  has  in  no  degree  discouraged  the  missionaries.  The  Holy  Father  has 
spoken  ;  that  suffices.  There  is  no  longer  a  word  to  be  said  ;  they  do  not  even 
allow  themselves  a  gesture.  They  are  silent,  and  obey." — Lettres  Edifianten, 
tome  xx.,  p.  523. 

Lastly,  at  least  one  of  the  Dominicans  confessed,  long  after  the  discussion 
was  closed,  that  he  "  believed  the  Jesuits  were  right." 

It  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  privileges  which  their  sublime  founder  ob- 
tained for  the  Jesuits,  that,  while  everywhere  exposed  to  calumny  and  per- 
secution, they  should  always  be  justified  by  events,  and  almost  always  by  the 
voluntary  testimony  of  their  accusers  themselves. 


MISSION'S   IN   CHINA.  143 

But  the  inevitable  hour  of  trial  arrives  at  last  for  all  human 
things,  and  Protestantism  must  accept,  with  whatever  repug- 
nance, the  inexorable  judgment  which  it  is  the  province  of 
history  to  pronounce  upon  all  the  works  of  man. 

The  introduction  of  Protestantism  into  China  has  been  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  one  of  its  earliest  and  most  conspicuous 
advocates,  and  it  is  to  his  pages  that  we  shall  tirst  have  recourse. 
One  remark,  however,  is  needful  by  way  of  preface.  Thus  far 
we  have  spoken  of  grave  men,  engaged  in  a  grave  \vork.  The 
sweet  but  solemn  figure  of  Ricci  arid  Schaal,  of  Verbiest  and 
Parennin,  of  Sanz  and  Dufresse,  and  their  martyred  successors, 
has  not  yet  faded  from  our  recollection.  We  have  now  to  hear 
of  others,  to  whom,  though  professing  another  faith,  we  must 
endeavor  to  do  justice.  Jf,  then,  it  should  be  found  that  the 
literal  citation  of  their  own  words,  the  bare  recital  of  their 
acts,  reads  like  a  satire,  let  not  this  be  imputed  as  a  fault  to 
the  annalist,  who  does  but  quote  the  one  and  record  the  other. 
If  the  history  which  a  multitude  of  Protestant  witnesses  have 
traced  of  their  own  operations  in  China  should  seem,  to  remove 
us,  at  one  step,  from  the  region  of  heroism  to  that  of  comedy, 
the  writer,  whose  only  aim  is  to  present  an  epitome  of  their 
narratives,  is  evidently  not  responsible  for  this  result.  That 
he  should  abstain  from  unadvised  or  superfluous  comment,  the 
reader,  to  whom  alone  the  office  of  judge  belongs,  may  reason- 
ably require ;  but  this  is  all  which  he  is  entitled  to  demand. 
And  with  this  caution  we  commence  the  history  of  Protestant- 
ism in  China. 


DR.  MORRISON. 

Mr.  Gutzlaff 's  narrative  opens  after  this  manner  :  "Dr.  Mor- 
rison was  the  first  herald  of  the  Gospel  who  landed  on  the 
shores  of  China."*  A  few  years  later,  Dr.  White,  a  Protestant 
American  bishop,  used  this  language,  in  his  Instructions  for 
the  Missionaries  to  China :  "  You  cannot  be  ignorant  that  in 
a  former  age  the  Christian  religion  was  extensively  propagated 
in  China,  being  countenanced  by  successive  emperors,  and 
•  others  of  high  rank  in  the  empire."f  Mr.  Gutzlaff  was  not 
ignorant  of  this  historical  fact,  for  he  often  bears  unwilling 
testimony,  as  we  shall  see,  to  the  noble  warfare  of  the  Catholic 
missionaries  ;  but  it  was  convenient  to  forget,  in  introducing 
his  hero,  what  everybody  else  remembered.  Dr.  Morrison, 

*  China  Opened,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  233. 

f  Oydopadia  of  American  Literature,  by  Duyckink,  vol.  i.,  p.  301  (1855). 


144  CHAPTER   II. 

then,  was  "  the  first  herald,"  if  not  of  the  Gospel,  at  least  of 
Protestantism,  in  China,  and  we  are  invited  by  his  various  biog- 
raphers to  take  note  of  his  life  and  works  in  that  land.  We 
have  ourselves  no  knowledge  of  either,  but  his  friends  and  com- 
panions will  freely  supply  whatever  information  we  desire. 

Dr.  Morrison,  they  tell  us,  commenced  life  in  the  humble 
guise  of  "  apprentice  to  a  last  and  boot-tree  maker."  By 
honorable  industry  he  rose  from  this  lowly  state  to  the  office 
of  a  preacher,  and,  after  some  experience  in  this  new  function, 
accepted  an  offer,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrance  of  his  family,  to 
proceed  to  Canton.  On  his  voyage  out,  his  widow — he  was 
twice  married — informs  us  that  he  "  sat  him  patiently  down  to 
the  Jesuit  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  composed  in  Chinese,  and 
copied  out  every  syllable  of  it  for  his  own  future  use."  It  was 
impossible  to  acknowledge  more  frankly  his  obligation  to  the 
men  whom  he  was  now  going  to  assist,  or  supplant,  in  convert- 
ing the  empire  of  China.  His  biographer  adds,  with  pardona- 
ble enthusiasm,  that  perhaps  "  angelic  eyes  sometimes  looked 
over  his  shoulder,  beholding  with  glowing  admiration  both  the 
wisdom  and  goodness  of  God  in  thus  training  the  man  who  was 
to  unbar  the  gates  of  life  to  the  millions  of  the  East."*  As, 
however,  his  other  biographers  unanimously  attest  that  Mr. 
Morrison  never  unbarred  any  gates  whatever,  not  even  his 
own,  which  he  always  kept  carefully  locked,  the  millions  of 
the  East  remained  wholly  unconscious  of  his  presence. 

Arrived  at  Macao,  we  learn  from  Mr.  Ellis,  a  well-known 
Protestant  missionary,  that  "so  strong  was  his  sense  of  the 
necessity  of  caution,  so  unwilling  was  he  to  obtrude  himself  on 
the  notice  of  the  people  of  Macao,  that  he  never  ventured  out 
of  his  house. "f  Sow,  there  were  only  two  classes  of  people  at 
Macao,  the  Chinese  and  the  Catholics ;  from  the  former  he  had 
nothing  to  fear,  since  the  government  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Portuguese;  and  of  the  latter  he  says  himself,  "The  Portu- 
guese Roman  Catholics'do  not  do  any  thing  violent  against  us  ;" 
while  elsewhere  he  allows  that  they  behaved  to  him  with  great 
civility,  even  conveying  his  letters  and  parcels  between  Macao 
and  Canton,  and  sometimes  giving  or  lending  him  books.  Mr. 
Ellis  adds,  therefore,  with  apparent  reason,  that  "  he  carried  his 
precaution  further  than  was  necessary  ;  but  it  seemed  better  to 
err  on  the  safe  side."  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  still  safer  to 
have  remained  in  England,  where  he  could  at  least  have  taken 
exercise  freely ;  whereas  "  the  first  time  he  ventured  out  into 
the  fields  adjoining  the  town  of  Macao  (we  are  still  quoting 

*  Memoirs  of  Eobert  Morrison,  D.D.,  by  his  Widow,  vol.  i.,  p.  134. 
f  Brief  Notice  of  China  and  Siam,  by  Rev.  W.  Ellis,  p.  59. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  145 

Mr.  Ellis),  "  was  in  a  moonlight  night,  under  the  escort  of  two 
Chinese." 

But  these  timid  and  fugitive  excursions,  which  could  hardly 
have  compensated  him  for  so  long  a  voyage,  were  evidently  not 
his  only  employment,  for  his  widow  tells  us,  that  while  at 
Macao,  he  "  found  an  object  of  tender  esteem,"  who  henceforth 
occupied  a  prominent  place  in  all  his  thoughts.  If  we  were 
speaking  of  Mr.  Morrison  simply  as  a  British  citizen,  it  would 
perhaps  be  ungenerous  to  notice  the  incidents  of  his  domestic 
life;  but  as  they  are  obtruded  upon  us  by  his  partial  biogra- 
phers, who  seem  to  think  that  they  suitably  illustrate  the 
career  of  "  the  first  herald"  of  Protestantism  in  China,  we  have 
no  alternative  but  to  take  them  into  account  in  estimating  his 
public  character. 

From  this  time  forth,  then,  the  pages  of  Mr.  Morrison's  journal 
abound  with  ardent  allusions  to  "  my  beloved  Mary,"  which 
alternate  with  texts  of  Scripture,  and  other  more  or  less  con- 
gruous topics.  If  his  wife,  for  they  were  speedily  married,  has 
a  headache,  he  records,  in  a  volume  which  it  was  his  intention 
to  print,  that  "it  pleased  the  Lord"  to  support  her  in  some  unex- 
pected way;  and  if  he  has  one  himself,  she — not  the  first,  but 
the  second  wife — presently  writes,  that  he  did  not  "  murmur," 
but  that  "  his  entire  acquiescence  in  the  arrangements  of 
Divine  Providence  sustained  his  mind."*  Such  were  their 
mutual  reflections  on  this  familiar  malady.  But  his  journal 
has  many  entries  of  the  same  class.  "  It  would  be  all  easy," 
he  exclaims  at  one  moment,  "if  Mary  were  well!"  but  the 
next,  rebuking  this  transient  weakness,  he  adds,  "  Patience,  O 
my  soul !"  His  soul,  of  which  he  candidly  reveals  the  secrets, 
seems  to  have  been  in  constant  need  of  these  admonitions.  On 
one  occasion  he  says,  "  My  mind  is  in  a  serious  frame,  a  little 
depressed,  a  little  melancholy;  but  still  holding  fast."  On 
another  day  the  entry  is,  "  I  have  to-day  \>eQv.  pretty  comforta- 
ble ;"  but  on  the  next  there  was  a  change  for  the  worse  in  his 
fitful  and  intermittent  piety,  and  he  was  only  "  tolerably  com- 
fortable." A  little  later  the  season  of  gloom  recurs,  and  he  is 
"  weighed  down  with  an  accumulated  load  of  guilt.  But  as 
all  these  passages,  and  many  more  like  them,  were  destined  to 
travel  sixteen  thousand  miles,  and  to  be  published  in  England, 
he  presently  throws  off  this  incubus  of  guilt,  assumes  a  more 
cheerful  tone,  and  rejoices,  in  characteristic  language,  to  be 
once  more  under  "  the  benignant  government  of  Jehovah." 

There  is  no  better  test  of  a  man's  character  than  his  habitual 
language.  Mr.  Morrison's  was,  to  say  the  least,  peculiar.  If 

*  Memoirs,  vol.  i.,  p.  294. 
11 


146  CHAPTER   II. 

he  writes  to  one  of  the  directors  of  the  missionary  society  which 
employed  him,  and  alludes,  as  he  always  does  on  such  occasions, 
to  some  religious  topic,  he  suddenly  exclaims, — "  Pardon,  dear 
sir,  my  breaking  off  to  vent  the  workings  of  my  mind  at  this 
moment."*  Perhaps  a  man  really  overcome  by  religious 
emotion  would  have  been  more  careful  to  hide  than  to  print  it. 
Sometimes  he  is  more  natural,  and  then  he  says  crudely,  "  But 
for  the  cause  I  serve,  I  would  gladly  exchange  my  present 
situation  for  any  in  England  or  Scotland  of  fifty  pounds  a 
year,"f — a  sentiment  which,  if  not  apostolic,  was  at  all  events 
perfectly  genuine.  But  we  are  now  sufficiently  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Morrison's  character,  and  may  proceed  to  review  his  actions. 

We  next  find  him  settled  at  Canton.  "  In  the  close  of  the 
year  1818,"  says  Mr.  Ellis,  "  he  received  an  appointment  in  the 
Honorable  Company's  factory,  which  he  has  held  to  the  present 
time  (1834),  wTith  credit  to  himself  and  satisfaction  to  the  Com- 
pany, and  without  neglecting  the  great  object  of  his  mission." 
When  we  learn,  as  we  shall  do  presently,  how  the  "  great  object" 
advanced,  we  shall  have  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  it  suffered 
very  little  from  his  conflicting  avocations  in  the  factory  ;  espe- 
cially as  his  colleague  Mr.  Milne  tells  us,  in  his  Retrospect  of 
the  Mission,  "all  that  the  missionaries  to  China  could  fre- 
quently do" — he  means  the  Protestant  missionaries — "  was  to 
address  an  individual  or  two,  with  fear  and  trembling,  in  an 
inner  apartment,  with  the  doors  securely  locked"  It  seems 
they  still  adopted  the  same  excessive  precautions  at  Canton 
which  Morrison  had  employed  at  Macao ;  and  while  the  Catholic 
missionaries  and  their  converts  were  accepting  martyrdom  in 
every  part  of  the  empire,  these  heralds  of  another  religion 
were  cautiously  hiding  themselves  in  what  a  vehement  preacher 
of  their  own  sect  calls,  with  honest  contempt,  a  skulking  and 
precarious  sojourn  in  obscurity  and  disguise. "j 

Mr.  Ellis,  however,  though  he  relates  all  these  incidents,  is 
of  opinion,  that  "  to  persevere  under  such  circumstances," — as 
a  great  many  merchants  and  clerks  at  Canton  were  doing  at 
the  same  moment, — "  required  no  common  strength  of  princi- 
ple, no  faint  and  wavering  love  to  Christ  and  love  to  souls,  and 
no  mere  transient  impulse  of  desire  for  their  salvation."  What- 
ever else  we  may  think  of  this  sentiment,  we  cannot  at  least 
deny,  that  Mr.  Ellis  is  in  all  respects  a  suitable  biographer  of 
Mr.  Morrison. 

It  appears  that  Morrison's  salary  at  the  factory  was  five 
hundred  pounds  a  year,  "which  was,  after  a  few  years,  in- 

*  Memoirs,  p.  166. 

f  P.  310. 

\  China  and  the  Chinese  Mission,  by  Rev.  James  Hamilton,  p.  20. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  147 

creased  to  one  thousand  pounds."*  It  was  on  his  promotion  to 
this  income,  which  he  no  doubt  faithfully  earned,  that  his 
widow  makes  the  following  remark  :  "  Thus  did  the  Supreme 
Disposer  of  all  events  attest  the  fidelity  of  His  servant,  and 
make  plain  his  way  before  him  !"  We  may  venture,  however, 
to  doubt  whether  the  acquisition  of  a  liberal  income  is  always  a 
conclusive  proof  of  acceptance  with  the  "  Supreme  Disposer." 
tc  Blessed  is  he  who  hath  a  thousand  a  year,"  though  it  expresses 
a  popular  conviction,  is  hardly  an  accurate  version  of  the  First 
Beatitude. 

But  Mr.  Morrison,  already  a  "  missionary"  and  a  factory 
clerk,  had  other  sources  of  income.  He  was  also  a  private 
tutor,  and  makes  mention  of  "  a  Dutch  youth,  my  fifth  pupil."f 
It  was  perhaps  fortunate  that  "  the  millions  of  the  East"  never 
lifted  the  latch  of  his  door,  for  he  could  hardly  have  had  much 
time  at  their  disposal.  He  found  leisure,  however,  to  pursue 
his  study  of  Chinese,  and  as  he  had  begun  with  a  Harmony  of 
the  Gospels  composed  by  the  Jesuits,  so  he  continued  to  the  end 
to  profit  by  the  labors  of  Catholics.  "  I  cannot  refrain  from 
inserting,"  he  says,  "  that  I  have  now  the  assistance  of  Chinese 
Christians  of  the  Romish  Church"  Elsewhere  his  journal 
records,  "  I  read  part  of  the  Exposition  of  the  Ten  Command- 
ments by  the  Catholics"  His  immediate  teacher  was  Abel 
Yun,  "  a  Koman  Catholic  Chinese  from  Pekin,"  and  a  convert 
of  the  Jesuits,  who  had  "  taught  him  the  Latin  language,  which 
he  speaks  fluently."  At  another  time  the  entry  is, — "  Received 
from  a  Chinese  Roman  Catholic  a  present  of  three  small 
volumes ;  his  younger  brother,  an  intelligent  boy,  sold  me  a 
book  of  Meditations."^: 

But  his  intercourse  with  Catholics  was  not  always  limited 
to  the  purchase  or  acceptance  of  their  books.  Sometimes  he 
even  visited  their  churches,  where  he  saw  multitudes  of  Chris- 
tians— a  "  vast  number"  is  his  own  expression — worshipping 
God,  not  "with  locked  doors,"  nor  ''in  fear  and  trembling," 
but  as  openly  as  they  might  have  done  in  London  or  Paris.  "  I 
went,"  he  says,  "  on  Friday  evening  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
cathedral,"  where  he  found  the  people  commemorating  the 
Passion  of  our  Lord.  There  was,  he  tells  us,  in  the  church  "  a 
representation  of  Jesus,"  and  "  the  preacher  called  upon  the 
people  to  look  at  the  part  into  which  the  spear  was  thrust,  and 
held  out  his  finger  to  point  to  it.  In  a  corner  was  a  figure  as 
large  as  life,  laid  in  a  tomb,  and  exhibited  as  the  body  of  Jesus. 

*  History  of  the  Propagation  of  Christianity  among  the  Heathen,  by  Rev.  W. 
Brown,  M.D.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  252. 
f  Memoirs,  vol.  i.,  p.  293. 
i  Missionary  Transactions  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  vol.  iii.,  p.  328. 


14:8  CHAPTER   II. 

The  people  went  forward,  one  after  another,  and  kissed  the  feet 
of  the  figure."*  And  then  Mr.  Morrison  went  home,  meditating 
perhaps  upon  this  instructive  scene,  and  comprehending  how 
the  Chinese  Christians  had  grown  familiar  with  the  Passion  of 
their  Redeemer,  and  whence  they  had  derived  courage  to  confess 
Him  openly  before  men,  and  even,  when  the  occasion  arose,  to 
lay  down  their  lives  for  him. 

Mr.  Morrison,  however,  continued,  as  Mr.  Ellis  says,  "  to  err 
on  the  safe  side."  But  he  remembered  that  he  had  been  sent  to 
China  as  "  a  missionary,"  and  that  he  must  at  least  do  something 
to  keep  up  the  character ;  and  so,  in  the  florid  language  of  Mr. 
Ellis,  "  this  devoted  missionary  tried  the  practicability  of  print- 
ing part  of  the  Scriptures."  The  Catholics  had  anticipated  him 
in  this  good  work  by  four  hundred  years,  as  Neander  has  told  us 
in  speaking  of  John  de  Monte  Corvino ;  and  the  candid  Mr.  Med- 
hurst  was  aware,  as  he  confesses,  that  a  second  time,  at  a  later 
date,  "  the  Catholics  had  translated  the  major  part  of  the  New 
Testament  into  Chinese."  Mr.  Morrison  was  also  conscious  of 
this  fact,  and  endeavored  to  turn  it  to  good  account.  "  The 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,"  we  learn  from  his  biographer,"  the  trans- 
lation of  which  had  been  the  work  of  some  Roman  Catholic 
missionary,  was  his  first  undertaking."f  He  might  well  confess 
his  obligations  "  to  the  Catholics,"  who,  as  Abel  Remusat  says, 
"  composed  in  Chinese  in  a  style  equal  to  the  best  authors  of  that 
country."  But  Mr.  Morrison,  even  with  the  aid  of  such  masters, 
could  only  spoil  their  work.  His  version  of  the  Scriptures  has 
long  since  been  abandoned  as  useless;  his  Grammar,  Protestants 
tell  us,  "is  rather  a  record  of  the  imperfection  than  of  the  com- 
pleteness of  his  own  progress  ;"J  while  his  Dictionary,  though 
copied  from  that  of  Father  Premare,  is  "  full  of  faults  "  according 
to  Klaproth,§  and  "  very  defective  "  according  to  Mr.  Taylor 
Meadows.) 

But  it  was  nothing  to  write  books,  imperfect  as  they  were,  and 
costing  enormous  sums,  unless  he  could  get  them  into  circulation. 
There  was,  however,  some  danger  of  irritating  the  Chinese,  and 
Mr.  Morrison,  we  have  seen,  was  accustomed  to  precautions. 
"As  to  circulating  the  books  which  I  have  printed,"  he  says, 
with  perfect  candor,  "  there  is  nothing  done  in  this  respect  but 
with  the  utmost  secrecy  and  caution,  and  in  a  way  that  could  not 
easily  be  traced  to  me."  Yet  an  ardent  Protestant  assures  us, 
that  "  the  Jesuits,"  meaning  the  Catholic  missionaries,  "  have 

*  Memoirs,  vol.  i.,  p.  361. 

f  Brief  Notice,  &c.,  p.  61. 

±  Monthly  Review,  vol.  Ixix.,  p.  469. 

§  Note  to  Timkowski's  Travels,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  350. 

|  Desultory  Notes  on  the  Government  and  People  of  China,  p.  24. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  149 

never  found  any  difficulty  in  circulating  the  books  which  they 
have  printed  in  Chinese ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  they  have  been 
obliged,  after  circulating  a  large  impression,  to  print  a  second 
edition."*  Men  who  exposed  their  lives  every  hour  of  the  day 
were  not  likely  to  indulge  excessive  caution  about  their  books  ; 
and  in  noticing  the  contrast,  we  may  perhaps  accept  the  expla- 
nation of  an  English  Protestant,  whose  sympathies  were  all  in 
his  favor,  that  "  Dr.  Morrison's  labors  were  not  of  a  dazzling 
and  heroic  order,  "f 

Thus  far  this  "  first  herald  "  of  Protestantism  in  China  hardly 
attracts  our  sympathy;  nor  can  we  agree  with  his  amiable 
biographer,  that*"  angelic  eyes,"  which  love  to  look  on  brave 
and  saintly  deeds,  were  likely  to  derive  much  satisfaction  from 
the  contemplation  of  his  cautious  proceedings.  But  it  is  time 
to  inquire,  before  we  pass  to  others,  what  success  he  had  in 
inducing  the  refractory  "millions  of  the  East"  to  enter  "the 
gates  of  life."  He  will  tell  us  himself. 

"  On  the  Lord's  day  I  have  preached  to  the  Chinese  in  my  own 
house,  but  I  have  not  to  rejoice  over  them  as  converted  to  God."J 
Yet  in  the  next  sentence  he  tells  us  of  four  Catholic  missionaries 
just  banished  from  Pekin,  because  they  had  been  too  successful 
in  the  same  attempt.  Again  ;  while  he  is  himself  carefully  shut 
up  in  his  house,  "  with  locked  doors,"  he  frankly  admits,  though 
apparently  without  deriving  any  instruction  from  the  contrast, 
that "  the  Christians  here" — i.  e.  the  Catholics — "  are  discovered 
by  their  refusing  to  subscribe  to  the  public  idolatrous  rites  of  the 
heathen."  Speaking  of  an  outburst  of  persecution  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Su-tchuen,  he  says  of  the  Catholics :  "The  two  leaders, 
who  would  not  recant,  are  ordered  to  be  strangled  immediately. 
Thirty-eight,  who  also  refused  to  recant,  are  ordered  to  be  sent 
to  Tartary,  to  be  given  as  slaves  to  the  Eleuths.''§  A  little 
later,  in  1820,  he  notices,  that  "four  poor  men,  barbers,  at 
Pekin,  were  seized,  and  would  not  renoimce  'the  European 
religion.' J:  So  that  they  were  everywhere  the  same,  whether 
at  Canton,  Pekin,  or  in  the  interior  provinces  of  the  empire; 
even  these  poor  Chinese  neophytes — barbers,  shopkeepers,  and 
women — being  more  courageous  soldiers  of  the  Cross  than  this 
educated  and  opulent  representative  of  English  Protestantism. 

Again  and  again  he  refers  to  similar  examples,  but  only  to 
adhere  more  closely  to  his  own  manner  of  life.  "A  French 
missionary,"  he  says,  "  after  repeated  orders  were  sent  to  him, 
was  obliged  to  leave;  whilst  1  remained  unmolested."  Why 

*  Memoir  on  sending  the  Scriptures  to  China,  by  William  Moseley,  p.  22. 
|  The  Cross  and  the  Dragon,  by  John  Kesson,  ch.  xv.,  p.  211. 
i  Memoirs,  vol.  i ,  p.  298. 
|  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  '65. 


150  CHAPTER   II. 

should  they  molest  him  ?  What  was  a  servant  in  the  English 
factory  to  them  ?  "  There  have  been  edicts,"  he  adds  triumph- 
antly, "  against  the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries,  threatening 
them  with  severe  penalties ;  but  my  name  and  pursuits  are,  I 
believe,  wholly  unknown  to  the  Chinese  government."*  No 
doubt  they  were,  although  he  had  now  been  there  about  six 
years.  If  St.  Paul  had  practised  as  many  precautions  as  Mr. 
Morrison,  he  would  have  known  neither  bonds  nor  imprison- 
ment, neither  scourging  nor  death, — but  the  heathen  would 
have  remained  unconverted. 

The  entry  in  his  journal  of  March  15th,  1813,  is  as  follows: 
"  Present  at  worship  only  A-Fo,  Low-He' en,  A-Pan,  and  A-Yun. 
At  the  beginning  of  worship  they  were  irreverent  and  laughed," 
which  seems  to  have  surprised  him  ;  yet  surely  the  spectacle  of 
a  married  gentleman,  in  an  easy  attitude,  reading  something 
out  of  a  book,  was  not  awe-inspiring,  and  might  well  appear 
to  this  mirthful  congregation  far  below  even  their  own  idea  of 
"  worship."  On  the  18th  of  April,  "  six  were  present ;"  and 
on  the  9th  of  May  he  is  able  to  say,  "  I  was  mistaken  in  saying 
that  I  never  had  more  than  nine ;  there  were  this  morning," 
including  the  ladies  of  his  party  and  the  servants,  "  ten  persons 
at  worship."  But  on  the  23d  of  the  same  month  cornes  the 
sorrowful  admission,  "I  ain  concerned  that  none  seem  to  feel 
the  power  of  truth ;"  and  again,  a  few  Sundays  later, — for  their 
religion  only  manifested  itself  on  Sunday, — "  I  am  concerned 
that  my  ministrations  are  apparently  in  vain."  In  the  follow- 
ing year,  1814,  "  on  February  28th,  Lord's  day,  I  addressed 
five  persons,  from  the  12th  chapter  of  Hebrews.  I  was  myself 
deeply  interested  in  the  subject."  Unfortunately  the  interest 
began  and  ended  with  himself.  And  twelve  months  later,  he 
is  still  "conducting  worship  with  Mrs.  Morrison  and  Mrs. 
Milne ;"  the  "  millions  of  the  East"  being  completely  deaf  to  the 
feeble  accents  of  so  cautious  a  herald.  Three  years  after,  Mr. 
Medhurst  still  reports,  that  "  his  labors  were  confined  to  the 
narrow  sphere  of  his  own  household." 

In  1820,  the  same  sterility  is  once  more  attested  by  the 
various  colleagues  who  had  now.  joined  him,  and  Morrison 
writes  to  the  society  at  home,  "All  the  new  missionaries  com- 
plain to  me  of  being  dispirited. "f  Yet  Mr.  Medhurst,  speak- 
ing of  this  very  year,  says,  "  A  French  missionary  was  strangled 
in  the  province  of  Hoo-pih,  by  order  of  the  government ;  and 
L'Amiot,  who  had  been  twenty-seven  years  in  Pekin,  was 
banished  to  Macao."  Mr.  Medhurst  adds,  "  they  have  now 


*  Memoirs,  vol.  i.,  p. 
f  Vol.  ii.,  p.  26. 


MISSIONS   IN    CHINA.  151 

Catholic  communities  in  all  the  provinces,  and  in  many  there 
are  public  chapels,  where  service  is  performed  by  native  priests." 
And  then  he  notices,  with  not  unnatural  admiration,  that  the 
Lazarist  Fathers  had  even  established  an  ecclesiastical  seminary 
"  in  Tartary,  beyond  the  wall  of  China."* 

In  1821,  for  lapse  of  time  brings  no  change,  "Dr.  Morrison 
was  much  concerned  at  the  small  effect  produced  by  his  labors." 
In  1822,  he  still  writes,  "there  are  few  natives  on  whose  con- 
science Divine  truth  has  made  an  impression."  In  1832,  after 
ten  years  more  of  enormous  expenditure,  "  only  ten  persons 
have  been  baptized ;"  every  one  of  whom  was  immediately,  in 
spite  of  what  Morrison  himself  calls  their  "obscure  views," 
provided  for  by  "  the  mission,"  and  employed  in  printing,  but 
apparently  without  securing  their  fidelity ;  for  some  years  after, 
the  Rev.  Howard  Malcolm,  who  was  sent  to  visit  and  report 
upon  all  the  Protestant  missions  in  the  East,  candidly  informed 
his  employers :  "  there  is  no  Chinese  convert  at  Canton,  nor 
religious  services  in  that  language,  nor  giving  of  tracts.5' f  And 
this  is  confirmed  by  Dr.  Wells  Williams,  an  American  mis- 
sionary, who  confesses,  in  1839,  that  "  the  prospect  at  his  death 
was  nearly  as  dark  as  when  he  landed  ;"J  while  even  of  the 
"  baptized"  printers  Morrison  himself  records,  that  they  were 
of  such  doubtful  morality,  that  they  were  commonly  addicted  to 
theft,  and,  on  one  occasion,  "  stole  several  cases  of  type."§ 

We  may  now  pass  to  other  witnesses.  The  "first  herald"  of 
Protestantism  in  China  has  confessed  his  failure.  Whatever  he 
put  his  hand  to  came  to  naught.  He  established  a  newspaper, 
and  it  died  with  the  first  number.  He  founded  a  school,  and 
out  of  a  total  of  twenty-nine  pupils,  nine  were  dismissed  for 
"  bad  conduct"  or  "  stupidity,"  three  ran  away,  and  eight  were 
removed  by  their  parents.  [  He  published  books  which  have  long 
been  abandoned  as  worthless ;  and  after  expending  either  upon 
himself  or  his  literary  failures,  about  one  hundred  thousand 
pounds,  contributed  chiefly  by  the  people  of  these  islands,  did 
no  more  towards  the  conversion  of  China  than  if  he  had  never 
quitted  the  shores  of  England.  In  1834,  the  year  of  his  death, 
his  journal  contains  this  passage:  "It  is  thirty  years  since  I 
was  accepted  as  a  missionary  in  Mr.  Hardcastle's  counting- 
house."  Who  Mr.  Hardcastle  was,  and  how  he  came  to  cumulate 
in  his  own  person  the  functions  of  a  merchant  and  a  pontiff,  is  not 
explained  ;  but  as  almost  the  last  entry  still  deplores  his  "  small 

*  China;  its  State  and  Prospects,  ch.  ix.,  p.  243. 

f  Travels  in  South  Eastern  Asia,  p.  189. 

±  The  Middle  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  327. 

8  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.,  p.  67. 

j  Chinese  Repository,  vol.  xii.,  p.  623. 


152  CHAPTER   II. 

success,"  this  he  appears  to  have  thought  he  ought  to  account 
for.  He  does  it  in  this  manner :  "  I  think  it  is  utterly  imprac- 
ticable to  any  but  a  Roman  Catholic  missionary,  who  has  persons 
in  the  interior  already  attached  to  his  cause,"  to  venture  into 
the  country.  Yet  his  colleague,  Mr.  Medhurst,  answers  this 
unworthy  plea  by  the  honest  rejoinder,  that  "  the  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries had  once  no  knowledge  of  or  adherents  in  China,  but 
went  forth  in  the  first  instance  unprotected ;"  and  Morrison 
repeatedly  acknowledges  that  the  heathen  being  now  on  the 
watch  for  them,  they  run  the  same  risks,  perhaps  greater,  at  the 
present  day  than  in  earlier  times.  "Three  European  Roman 
Catholic  missionaries,"  he  says  in  one  place,  "  entered  China 
about  a  year  ago  ;  .  .  .  .  there  was  a. great  risk  of  losing  their 
lives  if  discovered  by  the  government."  And  again  :  "  There  is 
a  native  Roman  Catholic  at  the  seminary  in  Macao,  who  is  pre- 
paring for  a  mission  to  Corea.  Many  have  lost  their  lives  there, 
but  this  person  is  willing  to  sacrifice. himself.  He  offers  himself 
up  to  God"*  He  only  stops  short  of  the  confession  which  a 
more  candid  coreligionist  makes  for  him,  when  he  says  :  "  The 
risks  the  Catholic  missionary  would  run,  and  the  dangers  he 
would  hazard,  are  greater  than  those  which  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionary feels  himself  called  upon  to  encounter."*)'  In  other 
words,  the  latter  is  willing  to  write  and  preach,  but  not  willing 
to  suffer  or  die.  And  this  invariable  and  admitted  contrast 
between  the  two  classes  is  thus  explained,  with  partial  accuracy, 
by  an  American  Protestant  bishop,  who  had  noted  the  same 
unwelcome  fact  in  other  lands :  "  Why  is  it  that  we  contemplate 
such  an  enterprise  with  terror?  Is  it  not  because  we  have  lost 
the  true  original  idea  of  the  ministerial  commission  ?"J 

In  1834:,  Dr.  Morrison  reached  the  climax  of  his  fortunes, 
and  was  made  vice-consul,  with  a  salary  of  one  thousand  three 
hundred  pounds  a  year,  "rather  an  anomalous  place  for  a  mis- 
sionary," as  he  himself  observes,  though  he  cheerfully  acquiesced 
in  the  anomaly,  and  would  have  profited  by  it  without  scruple ; 
but  in  this  year  he  died,  and  left  his  place  to  others,  to  run  the 
same  career,  record  the  same  confessions,  and  repeat  the  same 
failures. 

*  Memoirs,  vol.  i.,  p.  403. 
f  The  Cross  and  the  Dragon,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  189. 

\  Narrative  of  a  Tour  in  Turkey  and  Persia,  by  Rev.  Horatio  Southgate, 
vol.  i.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  293. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  153 


ME.    MILNE   AND   MB.  MEDHUEST. 

The  second  herald  of  Protestantism  in  China  was  Mr.  Milne ; 
but  as  Morrison  reports  that  "  Mr.  Milne  is  engaged  in  preach- 
ing to  a  few  Europeans," — and  Medhurst  adds  that,  "  finding 
that  the  public  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  and  free  intercourse 
with  the  natives,  were  difficult  in  China,  Mr.  Milne  removed 
to  Malacca,"* — we  need  not  ask  from  him  any  further  testimony 
to  the  character  of  Protestant  missions. 

The  third  was  Mr.  Medhurst,  well  known  by  his  work  on 
China,  and  a  man  of  considerable  ability  and  remarkable  can- 
dor. It  is  Mr.  Medhurst  who  quotes  with  approbation  the 
confession  of  his  colleague  Mr.  Milne,  with  respect  to  Ricci 
and  his  followers :  "  They  will  be  equalled  by  few,  and  perhaps 
rarely  exceeded  by  any ;"  and  then  he  adds,  with  a  kind  of 
involuntary  enthusiasm,  "They  have  long  since  joined  the 
army  of  martyrs,  and  are  now  wearing  the  crowns  of  those 
who  spared  not  their  lives  unto  the  death,  but  overcame  by 
the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  and  the  word  of  his  testimony." 

Mr.  Medhurst  goes  still  further,  and  forcibly  contrasts, 
though  perhaps  without  intending  to  do  so,  the  constant  valor  of 
the  Catholic  missionaries  with  the  incorrigible  pusillanimity  of 
their  Protestant  contemporaries.  "  Dozens  of  Catholic  priests," 
he  says,  "  are  every  year  clandestinely  introduced  into  the 
country ;"  while  "  Protestant  missionaries  limited  their  efforts 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century  to  those  parts  where  Europeans 
generally  reside,  or  where  the  British  and  Dutch  governments 
afforded  protection. "f 

He  notices  also,  though  without  comment,  the  apostolic 
poverty  of  the  same  courageous  men.  u  The  salary  of  each 
native  priest,"  he  says,  "  is  eighty-two  dollars  yearly," — rather 
less  than  seventeen  pounds.  He  might  have  added,  if  he  had 
known  it,  that  even  the  French  and  Spanish  priests,  some  of 
whom  are  members  of  great  European  families,  only  receive 
five  hundred  francs,  or  twenty  pounds,  per  annum,  for  their 
whole  support ;  and  even  from  this  scanty  allowance  "  a  por- 
tion is  deducted,  either  for  the  support  of  the  college  of  the 
mission,  or  for  providing  wine  for  the  Holy  Sacrifice,  as  well 
as  books,  &c.,  &c." 

Mr.  Medhurst  gives  us  some  information  about  the  Protestant 
"  converts,"  whom  he  describes  with  his  usual  sincerity.  Of 
"  one  of  the  first  baptized"  he  reports,  that  "  when  told  that 

*  China,  &c.,  ch.  x.,  p.  264. 
f  lUd.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  135. 


154:  CHAPTER   II. 

money  was  never  given,  except  for  work  done  or  goods  deliv- 
ered, he  became  indifferent,  and  is  now,  we  fear,  gone  back."* 
Of  another  he  says,  u  he  was  so  far  softened  as  to  worship 
Jehovah,  though  he  continued  to  adore  the  idols  of  the  country." 
This  convert  had  apparently  adopted  the  Roman  universality 
of  worship,  and  was  quite  willing  to  admit  any  number  of 
new  gods,  provided  he  was  not  asked  to  abandon  the  old. 

Of  another  convert,  a  certain  Chin,  Mr.  Medhurst  gives  this 
account :  "  He  is  a  smoker  of  opium.  He  will  of  course  find 
eight  to  ten  dollars  per  month  very  inadequate."  It  appears, 
then,  that  this  was  their  bribe  to  a  "  convert."  "  He  once 

Eromised  fair  to  be  a  Christian  ;  when  in  affliction  he  destroyed 
is  idol ;  when  restored,  gave  loose  to  evil  habits.  A  still  more 
curious  specimen  of  Protestant  neophytes  was  Lee,  a  Chinese 
of  Malacca,  evidently  a  man  of  considerable  resources,  who 
speculated  with  much  ingenuity  upon  the  forlorn  solitude  of 
his  wealthy  teachers.  Allowing  Mr.  Medhurst  to  suppose  that 
he  was  about  to  desert  him,  though  nothing  was  further  from 
his  thoughts  than  to  forfeit  his  lucrative  friendship,  the  latter 
wrote  off  urgently  to  Morrison,  entreating  him  to  promise  that 
Lee  should  be  appointed  "  the  first  Chinese  teacher  in  the 
college," — which  was  precisely  what  that  intelligent  individual 
aimed  at% 

The  college  here  referred  too  was  established  at  Malacca,  with 
the  object  of  providing  native  Protestant  teachers  in  China. 
Its  history  deserves  a  brief  review.  Thousands  of  pounds  were 
expended  upon  it,  and  these  were  the  results :  Mr.  Howard 
Malcolm  reported,  after  an  official  visit,  that  "  the  schools  so 
vigorously  and  so  long  maintained,  have  not  been  prolific  of 
spiritual  good.  Thousands  who  have  attended  them  are  now 
heads  of  families,  but  no  Malay  Christian,  that  I  could  learn^is 
to  be  found  in  the  place. ,"f  Dr.  Wells  Williams  adds,  that  the 
"  Protestant  missions  among  the  Chinese  emigrants  in  Malacca, 
Penang,  Singapore,  Rhio,  Borneo,  and  Batavia,  have  never  taken 
much  hold  upon  them,  and  they  are  at  present  all  suspended  or 
abandoned,"^  after  an  expenditure  which  no  report  will  ever 
reveal  to  the  world.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Brown,  the  historian  of 
Protestant  missions,  says,  that  "  these  stations  had  been  carried 
on  for  many  years,  and  though  much  labor  and  money  had  been 
expended  upon  them,  they  had  been  attended  with  little  success, 
particularly  as  regarded  the  conversion  of  souls."  "  The  Anglo- 
Chinese  College,"  he  adds,  "  dragged  on  for  years  a  languid 

*  Ch.  xi.,  p.  297. 

f  Travels  in  8.  Eastern  Asia,  ch.  ii.,  p.  114. 

|  The  Middle  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  331. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  155 

existence,"  but,  in  spite  of  its  cost,  "  was  never  in  a  state  of 
much  efficiency,  as  regarded  either  professors  or  students."* 
Once  they  made  a  convulsive  eifort  to  arrest  its  decay,  by 
announcing  that  they  would  admit,  not  Chinese,  for  whom  it 
was  intended,  but  "  persons  of  any  Christian  comrnunion."f 
No  one  came,  and  in  1842  it  was  closed,  and  transferred  to 
Hong-Kong,  with  results  which  shall  be  noticed  hereafter. 
Such,  as  their  own  witnesses  attest,  was  the  issue  of  all  the 
Protestant  schemes  in  the  Archipelago. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  early  as  1824,  there  were  already  three 
thousand  Catholics  in  Malacca  alone ;  and  in  Singapore,  as 
Commodore  Wilkes  notices,  although  the  Protestants  "  have 
not  met  with  any  success,  the  Catholics  have  already  made  one 
hundred  and  fifty  proselytes  to  their  faith,  though  they  have 
only  so  recently  arrived.":);  And  Mr.  Malcolm  adds,  that  "  at 
Singapore,  where  extraordinary  efforts  have  been  made,  not  a 
single  Malay  has  yet  been  converted  to  the  Protestant  religion; 
while  the  Catholic  missionaries,  who  have  two  churches  there, 
have  effected  a  great  number  of  conversions  amongst  the  Malays, 
the  Chinese,  and  others,  and  assemble  every  Sunday  in  their 
churches  a  considerable  concourse  of  men  of  all  religions.  What 
can  be  the  reason  of  this  difference  ?"  The  only  one  he  can 
suggest  is,  that  "  the  Papist  missionaries  are  in  general  men  of 
pure  morals,  and  live  much  more  humbly.  "§  A  few  years 
later,  in  1856,  the  handful  of  Catholics  had  become  seven 
thousand,  and  in  that  single  year  four  hundred  and  fourteen 
pagans  were  converted  and  baptized.  || 

At  a  later  period,  Mr.  Windsor  Earl  reports  once  more 
"  that  the  labors  of  British  missionaries  have  been  absolutely 
thrown  .away."  He  notices  moreover  the  usual  fact,  that 
"  they  have  invariably  remained  at  the  chief  settlements  of 
the  Europeans;"  and  that  "the  effects  of  their  labors  are  rarely 
heard  of,  except  through  the  medium  of  missionary  publications 
brought  out  from  England"*^  Mr.  Walter  Gibson  relates,  in 
1856,  of  the  city  of  Batavia,  that  "  the  Catholic  clergy  were 
the  only  ones  who  ever  paid-any  visits  of  mercy  and  charity."** 
Finally,  when  M.  Papin  visited  the  defunct  Malacca  college, 
one  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  frankly  avowed,  "  that  the 
enormous  expenses  incurred  in  its  construction  were  only  so 

*  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  264. 

f  British  Settlements  in  the  Straits  of  Malacca,  by  T.  J.  Newbold,  Esq.,  vol. 
i.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  182. 

\  United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  vol.  v.,  p.  396. 

§  Travels  in  S.  Eastern  Asia,  iii.,  24. 

j  Madras  Catholic  Directory  for  1860,  p.  175. 

^  The  Eastern  Seas,  cli.  xii.,  p.  398. 

**  Glance  at  the  East  Indian  Archipelago,  p.  385. 


156  CHAPTER  II. 

much  money  thrown  into  the  sea,  and  that  all  which  had  been 
reported  of  it  in  Europe  was  pure  charlatanism."* 

Let  us  return  to  Mr.  Medhurst.  In  a  letter  to  Morrison,  who 
made  no  secret  of  his  own  hopeless  failure,  he  asks,  "  Why 
are  we  not  successful  in  conversions  ?"\  The  true  answer  does 
not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  him,  and  the  "  sad  disunion" 
among  the  Protestant  missionaries  is  the  only  explanation 
which  he  admits.  Perhaps  the  evidence  still  to  be  offered  in 
these  pages  may  afford  a  more  complete  one. 

His  own  failure,  in  spite  of  his  talents  and  genial  character, 
appears  to  have  been  as  manifest  to  his  intimate  associates  as  to 
himself;  for  Mr.  Davidson  says  of  him,  just  before  he  made  his 
final  move  to  Shang-hae,  in  the  hope  of  redeeming  the  years 
which  he  had  already  wasted,  "  Mr.  Medhurst  has  been  a  per- 
sonal friend  of  mine  for  these  twenty  years,  and  he  will  believe 
me  when  I  say,  that  I  heartily  wish  him  all  success  ;  but  of  his 
success  I  have  my  doubts  !"J 

Mr.  Medhurst,  who  was  too  honest  to  conceal  or  pervert  the 
facts  which  were  continually  under  his  observation,  appears  to 
sum  up  his  conviction  of  the  impotence  of  all  Protestant  efforts 
to  convert  the  heathen,  especially  in  China,  in  these  words  : 
"  The  Christian  public  having  got  the  idea  that  China  is  shut, 
must  retain  their  opinion  until  we  can  get  men  of  God  to  open 
it."  Yet  at  the  very  moment  when  Mr.  Medhurst  pronounced 
this  sentence  upon  Protestant  missionaries,  the  eighteen  prov- 
inces of  China  had  been  constituted  into  as  many  apostolic 
vicariates,  in  each  of  which  there  was  a  Catholic  bishop,  in 
many  of  them  two,  besides  other  prelates  in  Corea  and  the 
kingdom  of  Annam,not  one  of  whom  was  tempted  to  doubt  that 
China  had  been  "  open  to  men  of  God"  for  many  centuries. 

There  is  much  conflict  among  Protestant  writers  on  the 
question  whether  China  is,  or  ever  will  be,  "open"  to  their 
efforts.  The  differences  of  opinion  are  remarkable.  Dr.  Reed 
says,  "  China  is  as  open  now,  and  has  been  for  the  last  twenty 
years,  as  it  ever  will  be  till  we  strive  to  enter,"§ — a  statement 
with  which  his  readers  will  probably  concur.  On  the  other 
hand,  Mr.  Howard  Malcolm  affirms  with  energy,  from  actual 
observation,  u  I  am  not  only  persuaded  that  at  this  moment 
China  is  not  open  to  the  settlement  of  Christian  teachers,  but 
satisfied  that  Protestants  are  far  from  being  ready  to  have  it 
open."]  In  1849,  a  Protestant  missionary  says,  "  China  is 

*  Annales,  tome  vii.,  p.  585. 

f  Morrison's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.,  p.  14. 

\  Trade  and  Travel  in  the  Far  East,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  279. 

§  Visit  to  the  American  Churches,  vol.  i.,  p.  76. 

1  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  196. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  157 

now  ripe  for  the  Gospel  ;"*  but  in  1854  the  society  which  em- 
ployed him  is  still  asking,  "  Has  the  time  arrived  for  sending 
the  Gospel  to  China  ?"f  Evidently  the  whole  question  depends 
upon  what  these  gentlemen  understand  by  "  open."  China  is 
quite  as  open  to  Christian  teachers  as  Thrace  was  to  St.  Paul, 
or  Britain  to  St.  Augustine — indeed  a  good  deal  more  so. 
"When  I  left  China,"  says  Mr.  Lay,  "there  were  at  least  half 
a  million  of  natives  living  within  the  range  of  our  daily  excur- 
sions, with  whom  a  missionary  might  have  as  many  interviews 
as  he  pleased.";):  Lieut.  Forbes  adds,  that  "  perfect  toleration 
is  granted  to  all  sects  of  Christianity  in  the  live  ports  ;"§  and 
Mr.  Tomlin  declared,  in  1844, — sixteen  years  ago, — that 
"  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  an  English  mis- 
sionary might  pass  with  little  difficulty,  as  the  writer  and 
all  his  missionary  brethren  who  have  been  much  amongst  the 
Chinese  can  attest."!  Yet  the  Protestant  missionaries,  though 
danger  has  long  since  disappeared,  at  least  in  the  regions  which 
they  frequent,  are  still  asking  if  China  is  "  open,"  still  repeat- 
ing Mr.  Medhurst's  question,  "  Why  are  we  not  successful  in 
conversions  ?" 


MR.    GUTZLAFF. 

Our  next  witness  is  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  the  most  ambitious  and  ac- 
tive of  all  the  "heralds"  whom  Protestantism  has  sent  to  China. 
It  will  be  useful  to  form  some  acquaintance  with  his  character, 
and  with  the  results  of  his  busy  life  and  labors. 

Of  Ricci  Mr.  Gutzlaff  says :  "  What  might  not  Ricci  have 
done  had  he  dedicated  his  labors  to  the  Blessed  Redeemer  ?"T 
Almost  in  the  next  page  he  quotes  the  letter  of  the  Empress 
Helena  of  China  to  Pope  Alexander  YIL,  in  which  she  utters 
the  prayer  of  her  heart  that  "  the  emperor  and  all  his  subjects 
might  learn  to  know  and  adore  the  true  God,  Jesus  Christ." 
Mr.  Gutzlaff  does  not  ask  himself  who  taught  her  that  name,  or 
who  gave  her  courage  to  confess  it,  even  from  the  steps  of  her 
imperial  throne.  Yet  he  might  have  known,  and  probably  did 
know,  what  so  many  of  his  co-religionists  in  China  have"  pro- 
claimed. The  Catholic  missionaries,  says  Mr.  Malcolm,  taught 
u  the  glorious  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Unity.  The  true  God  was 

V 

*  Missionary  Gleaner,  July,  1852. 

f  Ibid.  August,  1854. 

j  The  Chinese  as  they  are,  ch.  vi.,  p.  58. 

^  Five  Years  in  China,  ch.  xi.,  p.  185. 

|  Missionary  Journals,  introd.,  p.  17. 

1  History  of  China,  by  Rev.  Charles  Gutzlaff,  vol.  ii.,  p.  121. 


158  CHAPTER   II. 

set  before  the  Chinese.  Every  part  of  the  empire  was  pervaded 
by  the  discussion  of  the  new  faith.  Thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  saw  and  acknowledged  the  truth.  True,  they  were 
Jesuits," — a  good  many  of  them  were  Franciscans,  Dominicans, 
or  Lazarists, — "  but  that  very  many  of  them  were  holy  and 
devoted  men  is  proved  by  their  pure  lives,  severe  labors,  innu- 
merable privations,  and  serene  martyrdom."*  Mr.  Hamilton 
also,  a  Presbyterian  preacher,  more  violent  and  prejudiced  than 
even  most  of  his  order,  seems  astonished  at  his  own  confession, 
that  "  some  of  their  converts  appear  to  have  been  exemplary 
Christians,"  and  that  "  on  the  Trinity  and  Incarnation  they  are 
clear ;  while  the  perfections  of  the  Deity,  the  corruption  of 
human  nature,  and  redemption  by  Christ,  are  fully  stated. "f 
Yet  Mr.  Gutzlaff  could  affect  to  doubt  whether  Ricci  "  dedicated 
his  labors  to  the  Blessed  Redeemer.":): 

A  few  pages  further  on,  forgetting  what  he  had  just  said, 
Mr.  Gutzlaff  notices  a  modern  Catholic  bishop,  Monseigneur  de 
Saint  Martin,  who,  as  he  says,  "  testified  to  Jesus  Christ  before 
the  mandarins — a  noble  testimony  worthy  to  be  recorded."  In 
another  place  he  relates,  that "  while  the  missionaries  held  assem- 
blies, and  instituted  congregations,  in  honor  of  the  Holy  Virgin, 
they  had  also  assemblies  where  the  most  fervent  Christians 
meditated  upon  the  death  and  sufferings  of  our  Saviour. "§  We 
shall  see  presently  how  many  such  assemblies  Mr.  Gutzlaff  and 
his  friends  succeeded  in  forming. 

There  is  a  strange  inconsistency  in  Mr.  GutzlafFs  writings, — 
at  one  time  arrogant  and  boastful,  at  another  almost  abject, 
— which  makes  it  difficult  to  attach  a  definite  meaning  to  his 
words.  "  Probably  few  men,"  says  the  Chinese  interpreter  to 
H.  M.  Civil  Service,  "have  excelled  Dr.  Gutzlaff  in  the  capacity 
for  rapidly  inditing  sentences  containing  a  number  of  propo- 
sitions not  one  of  which  should  be  correct.  In  fact,  all  his 
labors  are  characterized  by  superficiality."!  At  one  moment 
he  sneers  at  the  Catholic  missionaries  for  "propagating  the 
legends  of  saints,"  and  at  another  lauds  their  sublime  confes- 
sions before  the  tribunals ;  in  one  page  he  reproaches  them  for 
not  preaching  Christ,  though  they  preached  Him  only,  and  in 
the  next  he  espouses  the  cause  of  the  Nestorians,  who  made  void 
the  whole  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  against  what  he  calls  the 

*  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  225. 

f  China  and  the  Chinese  Mission,  p.  15. 

|  An  official  of  the  province  of  Kwang-tung  reported  to  the  emperor  in  1851, 
chat  he  had  collected  from  Catholic  natives  "  books  copied  in  our  Chinese  char- 
acter, which  were  aU  about  Jesus.  Jesus  was  the  person  who  was  nailed  on  the 
cross." — Quoted  by  Commander  Brine,  The  Taeping  Rebellion,  ch.  iv.,  p.  94. 

§  Journal  of  Three  Voyages  along  the  Coast  of  China,  p.  398. 

I  The  Chinese  and  their  Rebellion,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  376. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  159 

"cold-hearted  orthodoxy"  of  the  Fathers  of  Ephesus.  Yet 
Mr.  Gutzlaff  was  eminent  amongst  the  Protestant  missionaries 
of  China,  and  we  are  obliged  to  refer  to  him,  both  for  the  sake 
of  his  evidence,  and  also  as  a  conspicuous  specimen  of  a 
preacher  of  Protestantism  to  the  heathen. 

Mr.  GutzlafF  travelled  more  than  any  of  his  colleagues,  and 
boasted  of  it;  but  Mr,  Malcolm,  who  evidently  appreciated 
him,  says  :  "  To  pour  annually  millions  of  tracts  along  the  same 
line  of  coast ;  to  go  in  face  of  prohibitory  edicts,  and  only  as 
protected  by  cannon ;  and  to  be  at  the  expense  of  both  tracts 
and  voyage,  while  so  many  of  the  books  are  yet  scarcely  intel- 
ligible, is  at  best  but  a  very  imperfect  mode  of  conducting  a 
mission."  And  again  he  says :  "  Mr.  Gutzlaff' s  usefulness  can 
extend  little  beyond  his  study  and  his  scholars."*  Like  Mor- 
rison, he  was  a  private  tutor  as  well  as  a  missionary,  until  he 
abandoned  both  callings  for  a  more  remunerative  profession. 

Sometimes,  we  have  said,  Mr.  Gutzlaff  could  use  humble 
words.  Here  is  an  example :  "  Protestants  have  been  anxious 
to  occupy  the  outposts,  rather  than  to  enter  the  Chinese  em- 
pire." He  does  not  tell  us  why  they  displayed  an  anxiety  so 
unusual  in  Christian  missionaries,  but  he  adds,  "  in  the  outer 
settlements,  where  the  missionaries  were  at  liberty  to  act,  they 
have  established  schools,  &c.  .  .  .  Yet  the  grand  work  of 
evangelizing  China  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  commenced  in 
earnest."  And  again :  "There  are  ten  native  converts,  truly 
a  small  number  !"f  But  such  modesty  was  unusual  with  him, 
and  he  desires  the  world  to  understand,  that  if  he  and  his 
friends  have  completely  failed  in  China,  they  have  been  much 
more  successful  in  Siam.  He  hoped,  perhaps,  that  no  one 
would  know  any  thing  about  the  latter  country,  and  forgot  that 
Providence  has  its  own  witnesses.  Let  us  follow  him  to  Siam. 

"  Of  the  various  individuals  mentioned  as  encouraging  in  the 
public  journals  of  Messrs.  Gutzlaff  and  Tomlin,"  says  Mr.  Mal- 
colm, who  fortunately  visited  Siam,  "  none  have  continued  so"^ 
The  Protestant  missionaries,  said  Dr.  Ruschenberger  a  little 
later,  "  are  toiling  in  a  cause  the  success  of  which  appears  to 
be  almost  hopeless."§  Mr.  Abeel,  after  protesting  against 
"  those  favorable  but  false  conclusions  which  are  too  frequently 
deduced  from  missionary  journals,"  confesses  of  the  pretended 
Protestant  converts  in  Siam,  "  there  were  no  grounds  of  cer- 
tainty for  concluding  that  any  had  been  renewed  in  the  spirit 

*  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  194. 

f  Chirm  Opened,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  233. 

J  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  159. 

§  Voyage  Hound  the  World,  by  W.  S.  Ruschenberger,  M.D.,  ch.  xxxi.,  p.  310. 


160  CHAPTER   II. 

of  their  minds."*  Long  after,  in  1842,  th'e  American  Board 
for  Foreign  Missions  unwillingly  confess,  that  "the  members 
have  utterly  failed  to  establish  a  permanenjt  school  among  the 
Siamese.''t  ^nd  then  comes  the  usual  contrast.  Mr.  Craw- 
furd  admits  that,  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  the  "  Catholic 
Christians  of  Siam"  were  becoming  a  numerous  body.J  Dr. 
Richardson,  who  was  sent  thither  on  a  mission  by  the  Indian 
government,  speaks  with  honor  of  the  "highly  respectable 
men"  by  whom  the  Catholics  were  instructed  in  the  faith,  and 
adds,  that  besides  the  native  Christians,  "there  are  fourteen  hun- 
dred Cochin-Chinese  Roman  Catholics."§  Mr.  Abeel  angrily 
describes  the  same  class  at  Batavia,  where  "  a  number  of  Cochin- 
Chinese,"  he  says,  "professed  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  and 
evinced  a  degree  of  caution  and  bigotry  which  had  no  doubt 
been  inspired  by  their  calculating  leaders."  It  seems  that  these 
Chinese  confessors,  driven  by  persecution  from  their  own 
country,  rejected  his  tracts  with  contempt,  and  told  him,  as  he 
confesses,  in  answer  to  his  own  remark  that  Protestants  made 
no  converts, — "  The  fault  is  in  your  doctrines ;  if  they  were  true, 
there  would  be  no  lack  of  genuine  disciples."!  Their  own  faith 
had  been  proved  under  sore  trial,  and  when  they  told  him 
to  his  face  that  there  were  "  thousands  upon  thousands"  of 
Catholics  in  their  own  country,  this  Protestant  teacher,  who 
could  not  so  much  as  induce  a  single  soul,  in  China,  Siam, 
Batavia,  or  anywhere  else,  even  to  listen  to  him,  makes  this 
comment  on  the  religion  for  which  they  had  sacrificed  all :  "  If 
the  word  of  these  men  can  be  relied  on,  how  widely  prevalent 
must  be  its  errors,  and  how  anti-Christian  its  influence  in 
Cochin-China  !7;^  An  interesting  illustration  of  the  nature  of 
that  influence,  as  respects  their  instruction,  is  supplied  by 
Mr.  Finlayson,  who  was  much  struck  by  meeting  a  native 

*  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  China,  by  Rev.  David  Abeel,  ch.  x.,  p.  234. 

\  Reports,  p.  159. 

\  Embassy  to  Siam,  &c.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  162. 

§  Journal  of  a  Mission  to  the  Coast  of  Siam,  in  Journal  of  the  Asiatic  Society 
of  ^Bengal,  vol.  ix.,  p.  237. 

|  It  is  necessary  to  resist  the  temptation,  which  occurs  at  almost  every  page, 
to  furnish  illustrations  of  the  real  character  of  Protestant  missionaries,  and  of 
the  solemn  mendacity  of  their  biographers  ;  but  on  this  occasion  we  may  relax 
the  rule.  Mr.  Abeel,  a  mere  adventurer,  who  never  converted  a  single  soul, 
and  could  only  revile  those  who  did,  is  thus  described  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ver- 
milye,  in  order  to  stimulate  the  waning  interest  of  his  countrymen,  and  attract 
fresh  subscriptions  :  "  Splendid  worldly  triumphs  did  not  mark  his  way.  But 
how  sweet  the  thought  that  from  far-distant  parts  of  the  globe  the  Saviour's 
ransomed  ones  shall  greet  this  faithful  missionary  on  the  shores  of  life,  and 
converted  souls  from  various  climes  shall  be  crowns  of  his  rejoicing  in  that 
day  " — Biographical  Sketches  of  Distinguished  American  Missionaries,  p.  241 ; 
edited  by  H.  W.  Pierson,  M.A.  (1852). 

*JT  Journal,  p.  150. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  161 

who  spoke  Latin  with  great  purity,  and  who  "  had  received  his 
education  in  Siam,  in  the  Catholic  seminary."*  But  the  same 
influence  was  sometimes  manifested  in  a  manner  which  would 
be  still  more  offensive  to  Mr.  Abeel.  The  prime  minister  of 
Siam,  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Hugh  Murray,  having  visited  Eng- 
land towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  "  had  become 
a  Protestant  in  London,  but  the  diligence  of  the  missionaries 
at  Siam  brought  him  within  the  pale  of  the  Catholic  Church. "f 
Lastly,  Mr.  Neale  declares,  that  "it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
that  the  Siamese  readily  give  ear  to  the  Catholic  priest,  bound 
like  their  own  in  bonds  of  perpetual  celibacy."  And  then  he 
gives  some  account  of  the  Protestant  missionaries,  to  the  num- 
ber of  "  seven  or  eight,  and  their  families,"  located  on  the  two 
banks  of  the  river  near  Bangkok.  "  The  missionaries  on  one 
side  were  at  warfare  with  those  on  the  opposite  bank  regarding 
certain  points  of  Church  doctrine ;  but  as  they  were  all  sup- 
ported by  one  society,  they  were  compelled  to  have  a  board 
meeting  once  a  month,  to  draw  up  reports,  and  send  in  their 
drafts  for  monthly  pay.";f 

Captain  Laplace  also  remarked  during  his  stay  in  this  coun- 
try, that  "  the  missionaries  established  in  Siam  are  chiefly 
occupied  in  disputing  with  one  another,  and  condemning  each 
other  to  eternal  fire."§ 

On  the  other  hand,  "  the  Catholic  Missionary  Society  at 
Bangkok,  when  I  was  there,"  says  Mr.  Neale,  "  consisted  of  one 
bishop  and  about  ten  French  priests,  besides  one  or  two  prose- 
lyte Chinese  priests.  Of  the  former  I  can  hardly  name  one 
that  was  not  endowed  with  every  talent  that  strict  collegiate 
education  could  afford  ;  and  the  latter  were  useful,  because, 
besides  being  sincere  Christians,  they  possessed  the  power  of 
expounding  the  Scriptures  to  their  Chinese  brethren."!  And 
this  is  confirmed  by  Mr.  Earl,  in  spite  of  rooted  prejudice,  when 
he  says,  that  the  great  success  they  have  met  with  in  Cochin- 
China,  and  in  other  parts  of  Eastern  Asia,  is  to  be  attributed  to 
"their  entire  devotion  to  the  cause  in  which  they  are  engaged," 
and  their  utter  indifference  u  to  pecuniary  emolument."^  "The 
Catholic  missionaries,"  says  Sir  John  Bowring  in  1857 — it  is 
well  to  continue  the  testimony  to  the  latest  moment — "  have 
certainly  always  exhibited  a  zeal,  a  patience,  a  devotion,  the  most 
perfect  and  persevering;"  and  then,  after  noticing  that  there  are 
seven  thousand  and  fifty  Catholic  converts  in  Siarn,  he  adds — 

*  Finlayson's  Mission  to  Shim,  ch.  iii.,  p.  136. 
f  Discoveries  in  Asia,  vol.  iii.,  book  5,  ch.  i.,  p.  233. 
\  Residence  in  Siam,  ch.  ii.,  p.  34. 

§  Campagne  de  Circumnavigation  de  la  fregate  I'Artemise,  tome  iv.,  p.  117. 
i  Residence,  &c.,  p.  39. 
\  The  Eastern  Seas,  ch.  xii.,  p.  394. 

12 


162  CHAPTER   II. 

nearly  forty  years  after  Mr.  GutzlafF  's  venturesome  account  of  his 
own  and  his  friend's  triumphs — "it  may  be  doubled  if  they  made 
a  single  convert  among  the  Siamese."*  We  have  followed  Mr. 
Gutzlaif  to  Siam,  and  the  excursion  has  not  been  unprofitable. 

Precisely  the  same  evidence,  illustrating  the  same  invariable 
contrast,  might  be  supplied  with  respect  to  Singapore  and  Pulo- 
Pinang.  At  the  latter  place  we  hear,  in  1852,  of  a  Catholic 
seminary,  with  "one  hundred  and  fifty  native  ecclesiastical 
students;"  and  at  the  former  of  a  band  of  missionaries  whose 
learning  and  virtues  are  recorded  with  enthusiasm,  even  by 
lay  writers.  Here  the  Abbe  Mauduit  "lived  in  the  woods,  at 
Boukat-Tima,  in  the  midst  of  a  colony  of  five  hundred  Chinese," 
whose  attachment  to  religion  and  to  its  ministers  had  only  been 
increased  by  suffering  and  exile.  Here  the  Abbe  Issaly  was 
the  companion  of  an  aged  Chinese  priest,  who  was  spending  his 
last  days  in  ministering  to  his  "numerous  Christian  country- 
men at  Singapore."  "  Oh,  how  insignificant  are  we  all !" 
exclaims  an  eye-witness  of  their  labors,  "  travellers,  diplomat- 
ists, or  consular  agents,  in  comparison  with  these  missionaries ! 
When  1  contemplated  so  much  abnegation  and  so  much  zeal, 
when  I  saw  some  going  forth  to  seek  martyrdom  in  China, 
others  pursuing  the  most  wretched  into  their  huts  ...  I  wras  no 
longer  surprised  that,  destitute  and  without  aid,  they  had  acquired 
an  influence  over  the  population  which  the  Anglican  clergy, 
with  their  wealth  and  their  aristocratic  habits,  could  not  obtain. 
Others  saw  it  as  well  as  myself,  groaned  over  it,  but  dared  not 
utter  their  thoughts."f  And  it  is  not  only  in  Siam  and  Batavia 
that  Catholic  Chinese  are  found  rivalling  in  devotion  and  forti- 
tude the  martyrs  and  confessors  of  their  own  land.  Even  in 
Japan  Mr.  Hodgson  met  Chinese  Catholics,  "who  had  a  large  col- 
lection of  Roman  Catholic  books,"  and  courage  enough  to  recom- 
mend them  openly  to  the  Japanese.^  Even  in  the  West  Indies  a 
Protestant  minister  angrily  records  that,  "  many  Chinese  Coolies 
have  married  among  the  Creoles,  and  have  embraced  Roman- 
ism.'^ It  is  certainly  a  striking  fact,  that  while  Chinese  converts 
are  added  to  the  Church  in  so  many  foreign  lands,  and  every- 
where display  the  same  ardor  and  sincerity,  the  Protestant 
missionaries  despair  of  converting  them  even  in  their  own. 

The  only  additional  passage  which  we  will  quote  from  Mr. 
Gutzlaff  is  one  which  supplies  its  own  comment :  "  We  sincerely 
hope,"  he  says,  "  that  henceforth  Roman  Catholic  missionaries 

*  The  Kingdom  ami  People  of  Siam,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xii.,  pp.  350,  371,  376. 
{•  Voyage  dans  VArchipel  Indian,  par  V.  Fontanier,  Ancien  Consul  a  Singa- 
pour,  Me.mbre  Correspondant  de  1'Institut ;  ch.  xii.,  pp.  178-182  (1852). 
\  Residence  in  Japan,  ch.  x.,  p.  221  (1861). 
§  The  West  Indies,  by  Edward  Bean  Underbill,  ch.  iii.,  p.  49  (18G2). 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  163 

may  emulate  the  Protestants  in  preaching  Christ  crucified !" 
Such  was  the  parting  counsel  of  Mr.  Gutzlaff  to  the  mission- 
aries of  the  Catholic  Church.  And  yet  the  man  who  gave  this 
advice,  and  bade  others  imitate  his  apostolic  zeal,  actually 
abandoned  for  a  more  lucrative  calling,  not  only  the  office,  but 
even  the  name  of  a  missionary.  "For  some  years  before  his 
death,"  we  are  told  by  Dr.  Brown,  "Mr.  Gutzlaff  had  ceased  to 
call  himself  a  missionary."*  He  found  it  more  profitable  to 
•"  take  the  office  of  interpreter  to  the  English  commission,"  says 
Dr.  Williams,  "  at  a  salary  of  eight  hundred  pounds. "f  "  He 
has  lost  much  of  his  influence  as  a  Christian  minister,"  says  the 
Rev.  Gustavus  Hines,  "  both  among  the  natives  and  foreigners. 
Report  affirms  that  he  has  fifteen  thousand  pounds  deposited  in 
the  Bank  of  Australia,  which  he  has  accumulated  while  em- 
ployed as  a  missionary  !"$  But  he  seems  to  have  fallen  still 
lower.  "  Mr.  Gutzlaff  is  attached  to  the  personal  staff  of  the 
general  as  interpreter,"  says  a  British  officer  of  rank,  "  but  is, 
in  fact,  under  Sir  Hugh,  head  of  the  police."  And  even  in  this 
character  he  failed  ;  for  the  same  authority  tells  us,  that  on  an 
important  occasion,  "  Gutzlaff's  information  proved  altogether 
false."§  Lastly,  having  failed  as  a  missionary  and  a  policeman, 
he  tried  his  hand  at  medicine,  but  always  with  the  same  result. 
"  The  Chinese  eagerly  sought  his  prescriptions,"  says  Mr. 
Downing,  "  although  his  skill  was  of  the  most  moderate  char- 
acter."! Such  was  the  celebrated  Protestant  missionary  who 
reproached  Ricci  for  not  serving  the  Redeemer,  and  admonished 
the  Catholic  evangelists  to  "  emulate"  his  zeal  for  Christ. 

Some  British  official  in  China  has  attempted  to  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  but  the  attempt  displays  more 
irony  than  reverence.  The  "Island  of  Gutzlaff,"  near  Chusan, 
we  are  informed  by  a  recent  traveller,  "  is  a  barren  rock."T 


MR.    TOMLIN. 

Mr.  Gutzlaff's  friend  and  companion,  the  Reverend  J.  Tom- 
lin,  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  next  claims  our  attention. 
As  we  are  relating  the  history  of  "Protestantism  in  China,  we 
cannot  fairly  refuse  to  notice  any  of  its  more  prominent  agents. 
For  this  reason  we  will  hear  Mr.  Tomlin. 


*  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  iii.,  p.  371. 

f  The  Middle  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.,ch.  xix.,  p.  341. 

t  Life  on  tJie  Plains  of  the  Pacific,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  266. 

§  The  Last  Year  in  China,  by  a  Field  Officer,  Letter  xxi.,  p.  135. 

fi  The  Fan  Qui  in  China,  by  H.  Downing,  M.B.C.S.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  175. 

1  The  Times,  August  28, 1860. 


164  CHAPTER   II. 

The  missionary  career  of  this  Anglican  clergyman,  who  visited 
innumerable  places  in  the  East,  but  only  to  abandon  them  all 
in  turn,  is  not  unworthy  of  our  attention.  Batavia  first  re- 
ceived him  ;  but  the  climate  was  trying,  and  still  more  the 
people,  so  he  prepared  his  baggage,  and  wrote  in  his  journal : 
"  The  very  name  of  this  place  strikes  terror  into  the  hearts  of 
most  Europeans,  so  that  few  missionaries  care  to  be  sent 
hither."*  Yet  a  lay  traveller  assures  us,  that  "  Batavia  de- 
serves not,  after  all,  the  bad  name  strangers  have  commonly 
given  to  it."f  From  Batavia,  Mr.  Tomlin  wandered  to  Singa- 
pore, thence  to  Siam,  thence  to  China,  thence  to  travel  with 
Gutzlaff,  and  finally  to  India,  doing  nothing  anywhere,  except 
distributing  thousands  of  Bibles  and  tracts,  which  nobody  read, 
or  could  read.  Yet  to  each  place  he  confidently  affirms  that 
he  was  "called  by  the  Lord,"  though  the  call  appears  only  to 
have  enjoined  a  flying  visit,  since  from  each  he  transferred 
himself  immediately  to  another.  Wherever  he  went  he  tells 
us  "  the  arm  of  the  Lord  was  revealed  ;"  everywhere  also  "  the 
Lord  is  doing  wonderful  things,"  though  apparently  not  won- 
derful enough  to  induce  him  to  stay  to  contemplate  them.  He 
was  constantly  "  much  refreshed  in  his  labors ;"  and  though 
he  does  not  even  pretend  that  he  ever  made  a  solitary  Christian 
in  all  his  journeys,  he  is  able  to  report,  that  "  the  abundant  bless- 
ing of  the  Lord  rested  upon  our  humble  labors  in  the  medical 
department.";): 

In  Siam  he  hired  a  certain  Hing,  for  adequate  recompense, 
to  assist  in  the  translations  of  which  he  tells  us  the  intelligent 
sovereign  of  that  country  "  could  make  neither  head  nor  tail ;" 
and  which,  he  adds,  "  were  abused  and  torn  by  the  people,  and 
ridiculed  by  the  priests  on  account  of  their  blunders."  "  The 
old  man  Hing,"  he  relates,  "  pleases  us  much  ;  he  has  a  sound 
rnind  and  inquisitive  spirit,  is  meek  and  tractable,  approving 
the  truth."  But  a  little  later  these  encouraging  hopes  "  were 
much  blighted,"  he  says,  for  they  discovered  that  their  inquisi- 
tive disciple  wished,  in  Mr.  Tomlin's  own  words,  "to  make 
only  a  partial  covenant  with  the  Lord,"  and  "  fell  into  loose 
habits,"  and  was  "impatient  of  the  restraints  we  imposed  upon 
him,  especially  regarding  the  Sabbath,"  and,  when  his  wages 
ceased,  "  at  last  resolved  to  leave  us."§ 

Another  of  these  "  meek  and  tractable,"  because  highly 
salaried  converts,  by  name  Chaou-Bun,  after  "  writing  out 
copies  of  the  whole  New  Testament,"  unfortunately  relapsed 

*  Missionary  Journals  and  Letters,  ch.  ii..  p.  31  (1844). 
f  Qerstaecker,  Voyage  Round  the  World,  vol.  iii.,  p.  173. 
f  Ch.  vii.,  p.  180. 
|  Ch.  vii.,  p.  188. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  165 

"into  gross  darkness,  and  his  spirit  broke  forth  against  the 
truth,  and  he  despised  all  our  sacred  books." 

While  in  Siam,  Mr.  Tomlin  had  "  a  Sabbath  Chinese  ser- 
vice," and  the  congregation,  he  says,  "  numbered  from  six  to 
eight  individuals,  who  cheerfully  attend."  They  had  reason  to 
be  cheerful,  for  they  never  received  such  wages  before  or  since. 
Bishop  Courvezy,  Yicar  Apostolic  of  Siam,  one  of  the  French 
missionaries  whom  Mr.  Neal  visited  with  so  much  pleasure, 
gave  this  account,  in  1 838,  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries  at  Bangkok:  "They  print  and  distribute  tracts, 
but  do  not  make  a  single  proselyte.  By  distributing  medicines 
they  contrive  to  collect  together  a  certain  number  on  Sundays. 
The  way  they  manage  the  matter  is  as  follows:  All  who 
apply  for  remedies  on  the  Saturday  are  told  they  shall 
have  them,  if  they  come  at  a  certain  hour  on  the  following 
morning.  When  they  arrive  the  next  day,  the  ministers  have 
a  breakfast  ready  for  them,  after  which  they  receive  instruc- 
tions from  a  catechist  who  is  still  a  pagan" — such  as  Hing,  or 
Chaou-Bun, — "they  say  some  prayers,  and  are  then  invited  to 
eat  again.  At  length  the  medicines  are  distributed,  when  they 
who  came  for  them  depart,  never  again  perhaps  to  make  their 
appearance.  I  have  received  these  details  from  two  Chinese, 
who  once  attended  the  meetings,  but  have  been  for  the  last  few 
months  fervent  Catholics."* 

Another  of  Mr.  Tomlin's  associates  in  Siam  was  "  the  young 
prince  La  Eat,"  to  whom  he  presented,  as  was  his  custom,  "  a 
pocket-bible ;"  a  gift  which  that  royal  youth  did  not  appre- 
ciate, being,  as  Mr.  Tomlin  records,  "  occupied  with  trifles,  yet 
he  may,  by  the  Lord's  blessing,  be  impressed  with  serious 
things"— an  eventuality  which  Mr.  Tomlin  did  not  stay  long 
enough  to  attest. 

Mr.  Tomlin  now  bade  farewell  to  Siam,  and  took  charge  of 
the  Anglo-Chinese  college  at  Malacca,  after  trying  Batavia, 
Singapore,  and  a  good  many  other  places,  and  always  with  the 
same  result.  At  each  change,  however,  he  says,  "  I  was  at 
liberty  to  enter  on  another  missionary  enterprise,  to  which  I 
felt  myself  called  in  the  Providence  of  God  ;"  and  then  he  took 
ship  from  Malacca  and  set  out  for  Calcutta.  The  number  of 
"calls"  which  Mr.  Tomlin  received  was  very  considerable,  and 
would  have  bewildered  most  men,  for  they  seemed  to  contra- 
dict one  another ;  and  as  the  various  places  to  which  they  invited 
him  lay  wide  apart,  he  must  have  consumed  a  large  part  of  his 
time  in  travelling  from  one  to  the  other ;  a  circumstance  which 
implies  the  absence  of  all  method  and  foresight,  and  obliges  us 

*  Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  107. 


166  CHAPTER   II. 

to  conclude  that  "  calls"  so  diverse  and  eccentric,  and  always 
leading  to  nothing,  came  from  another  source  than  that  to 
which  he  referred  them. 

However,  he  is  now  in  Calcutta,  and  we  may  hope  has  found 
a  resting-place  at  last.  But  his  wanderings  were  not  yet  ter- 
minated. In  Calcutta  his  children  "  became  sick,"  and  he  re- 
solved to  close  his  agitated  career  and  return  to  England.  The 
ship  in  which  he  embarked  caught  fire  in  the  Calcutta  river, 
but  the  passengers  were  promptly  rescued  by  another  vessel, 
of  which  "  the  captain  entreated  us  kindly  ;"  upon  which  Mr. 
Tomlin  and  his  friends  hastened  to  read  "  suitable  portions  of 
God's  word,"  and  especially  "  the  narrative  of  Paul's  shipwreck 
in  Acts  xvii."  And  then  he  had  another  "call."  "The  Lord 
opened  a  way  for  proceeding  to  Cherrapungi ;"  and  Mr.  Gray, 
a  fellow-missionary,  "  considered  the  Lord's  dealings  with  us 
very  remarkable,  and  thinks  I  have  a  very  distinct  call  from 
Him."  So  they  set  out  for  Cherrapungi ;  but  not  without 
first  reading  "  second  and  third  chapters  of  Ezekiel,"  because 
they  contained  the  appropriate  words,  "  Son  of  man,  I  send 
thee  to  the  house  of  Israel."  But  the  Hindoos,  or  house  of 
Israel,  dwelling  at  Cherrapungi,  did  not  retain  him  long,  as  a 
new  "  call"  deprived  them  of  his  presence.  He  stayed  long 
enough,  however,  to  ascertain — and  it  was  the  only  discovery 
which  he  made  in  India — that  "  the  great  foes  to  Christ  and 
His  gospel  are  the  Pope,  Mahomet,  and  Brahma ;"  and  that 
"  the  Pope's  emissaries,"  whom  he  found  everywhere  doing  the 
work  which  he  everywhere  abandoned  as  hopeless,  "  are  com- 
ing forth  like  a  cloud  of  locusts."*  So  he  resolved  a  second 
time  to  quit  India,  after  having  "sojourned,"  as  he  observes, 
"  like  the  Patriarch  Jacob,  many  years  in  the  East ;"  and  hav- 
ing accomplished  this  final  voyage,  arid  reached  England  in 
safety,  had  the  satisfaction  to  know,  after  so  many  and  various 
wanderings,  that  he  had  at  last  received  a  true  "  call." 

DR.  SMITH. 

We  have  now  made  acquaintance  with  several  of  the  most 
eminent  and  energetic  "  heralds"  of  Protestantism  in  China, 
whose  operations  had  already  consumed  thirty  years,  and 
exhausted  vast  sums  of  money,  but,  as  we  have  seen  from  their 
own  testimony,  without  even  the  smallest  effect  upon  the  popu- 
lations of  Eastern  Asia.  Among  the  teachers  there  had  not  been 
a  solitary  martyr,  among  their  hearers  not  a  solitary  Christian. 
Let  us  continue  the  narrative  to  the  present  hour ;  and  our  next 

*  Cli.  iv.,  p.  379. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  167 

witness  is  an  authoritative  exponent  of  the  Anglican  religion, 
the  "  bishop"  whom  it  dispatched  to  recommend  its  claims  to 
the  people  of  China. 

The  Rev.  George  Smith  was  originally  sent  to  these  regions 
"  on  behalf  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,"  and  has  written 
an  account  of  all  that  he  saw  and  did.  His  book  opens  with 
the  statement,  characteristic  of  the  noble  munificence  of  the 
English  people,  that  "  an  anonymous  donor  gave  six  thousand 
pounds  for  commencing  a  mission  in  China."  Alas  !  that  such 
a  gift,  and  many  more  like  it,  should  have  been  fruitlessly 
squandered,  not  in  promoting  the  honor  of  God  or  the  welfare 
of  the  heathen,  but  in  supporting  such  institutions  as  the 
Malacca  college,  or  paying  the  expenses  of  a  Gutzlaff  or  a 
Tomlin,  or  in  fees  to  pretended  converts  who  worshipped 
"  Jehovah"  while  it  lasted,  and  Buddha  when  it  was  spent. 
For  this  has  been  the  only  fruit  of  an  expenditure  almost 
unparalleled  in  the  history  of  missions.  The  agents  of  Prot- 
estantism have  sown,  but  have  not  reaped  ;  they  have  planted, 
but  have  not  gathered  ;  "  the  grass  is  withered,  and  the  flower 
is  fallen,  because  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  hath  blown  upon  it."* 

The  first  fact  which  we  will  borrow  from  Mr.  Smith  has 
reference  to  the  estimate  which  the  Chinese,  like  other  heathen 
nations,  have  formed  of  the  English  religion.  "  Perhaps  this 
English  doctrine,"  they  told  him,  "  may  be  very  good,  but  we 
wish  that  you  would  first  try  it  on  the  English  themselves,  for 
they  are  wicked  men.  "When  this  doctrine  has  made  them 
better,  then  corne  and  speak  to  us."f  And  this  statement  is 
more  than  confirmed,  as  respects  even  the  teachers  of  the 
doctrine,  by  Mr.  Sirr,  in  1849  ;  by  whom  we  are  told,  that  "  to 
prove  the  impression  produced  on  the  minds  of  the  Chinese 
heathens  by  the  lives  of  the  missionaries  being  at  variance  with 
their  preaching,  the  common  expressions  made  use  of  with 
reference  to  them  are,  Lie-preaching  demls"\ 

That  preachers  who  were  thus  appreciated  by  the  discerning 
pagans  should  fail  to  convert  them  can  hardly  surprise  us.  Some 
u  converts,"  however,  they  made,  and  Mr.  Smith  will  tell  us  of 
what  sort.  At  Amoy,  he  says,  "  the  most  regular  attendants 
on  the  services" — not  one  of  whom,  he  admits,  had  even  been 
baptized — "  were,  from  their  situation  or  employment,  in  some 
measure  dependent  on  the  missionaries,  and  whose  sincerity 
might  on  that  account  be  exposed  to  suspicion."§  Yet  it  was  of 
such  unbaptized  heathens,  attracted  only  by  gifts  and  bribes,  and 

*  Isaias  xl.  7. 

f   Visit  to  the  Consular  Cities  of  China,  by  Rev.  George  Smith,  M.A.,  p.  54. 
i  China  and  the  Chinese,  by  Henry  Charles  Sirr,  M.A.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  x.,  p.  216. 
§  P.  398. 


168  CHAPTER   II. 

always  ready  to  desert  the  moment  their  wages  ceased,  that  for 
many  years  the  missionaries  were  wont  to  report  as  follows  to 
the  societies  at  home,  who  relied  chiefly  upon  such  reports  to 
obtain  fresh  subscriptions:  UA  signal  blessing,"  says  one, 
"  has  attended  the  work  at  Ainoy."  "  Our  meetings,"  writes 
another,  "  continue  to  be  attended  with  unabated  solemnity  and 
interest."*  "  So  mightily,"  says  the  Secretary  of  the  London 
Missionary  Society,  in  1857,  with  intrepid  composure,  "  has 
the  Word  of  God  grown  and  prevailed  !" 

As  Amoy  was  formerly  represented  by  Protestant  missionary 
societies  as  the  solitary  exception  to  their  misadventures  in 
China,  it  may  be  well  to  suspend  for  a  moment  our  narrative, 
in  order  to  test  the  fidelity  of  their  reports. 

To  expose  this,  and  all  similar  inaccuracies,  of  which  we 
shall  detect  a  considerable  number  in  the  course  of  these  pages, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  employ  a  little  industry  of  research. 
Whenever  we  hear  of  unwonted  missionary  successes  in  any 
particular  spot,  we  have  only  to  interrogate  Protestant  travellers 
who  have  visited  it,  and  the  fiction  presently  collapses.  Here, 
then,  is  the  candid  testimony  of  men  actually  resident  in  China, 
who  were  themselves  engaged  in  the  work,  and  only  desired  to 
exaggerate  its  success.  The  first  writes  from  Amoy  itself,  and 
discloses  in  these  words  the  real  character  of  the  operations  in 
which  he  had  taken  part :  "  In  the  case  of  most  applicants  we 
find  much  difficulty  in  deciding  whether  to  receive  them  or 
not."f  This  witness  evidently  agreed  with  Mr.  Smith,  that  the 
motive  of  the  applicants  was  exposed  to  suspicion. 

A  second  authority,  also  a  Protestant  minister,  but  only  a 
visitor  in  China,  and  therefore  perfectly  sincere  in  his  report, 
pleasantly  declares  of  Protestant  converts  in  every  heathen  land, 
—he  had  visited  a  good  many, — "it  is  much  easier  to  get  them 
converted  than  it  is  to  keep  them  so.";);  But  we  have  a  third 
testimony,  which  is  more  precise  and  minute,  and  which  will 
furnish  all  the  information  we  desire  to  obtain.  In  1856,  Dr. 
Ball,  an  American  Protestant,  who  was  not  only  the  intimate 
associate,  but  the  constant  guest  of  the  missionaries  at  Amoy, 
and  who  regularly  frequented  their  weekly  service,  though 
he  does  not  so  much  as  allude  throughout  his  voluminous 
correspondence  to  their  gaining  even  a  solitary  convert,  makes 
'this  decisive  revelation  with  respect  to  Amoy  itself:  "The 
audience  numbered  about  a  dozen  !"§  Now,  as  at  least  one-half 
of  this  scanty  audience  were  probably  Europeans,  and  the  rest 

*  China  and  the  Missions  at  Amoy,  p.  45  (1854). 

f  The  Chinese  Missionary  Gleaner,  vol.  i.,  p.  51. 

1  Rev.  G.  Mines,  Plains  of  the  Pacific,  ch.  xv.,  p.  308. 

§  Rambles  in  Eastern  Asia,  by  B.  L.  Ball,  M.D.,  ch.  xxxix.,  p.  320  (1856). 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  169 

the  servants  or  paid  "  dependants"  of  the  missionaries,  we  may 
at  length  appreciate  at  its  true  value  the  "  signal  blessing" 
which  had  accompanied  the  Protestant  sermons  at  Amoy,  as 
well  as  u  the  unabated  solemnity  and  interest"  with  which  they 
were  heard.  Mr.-  Lockhart,  writing  five  years  later,  not  only 
confesses  that  these  pretended  converts  were  "  most  of  them 
patients"  of  the  dispensary  over  which  he  presided,  with  every 
qualification  for  the  task,  but  quotes  the  admission  of  his 
colleague  Dr.  Hobson,  that  they  were  perfectly  "  indifferent" 
to  religion,  and  only  submitted  to  the  infliction  of  a  sermon, 
because  it  was  ingeniously  administered  together  with  the 
drugs  which  they  probably  considered  the  least  distasteful  of 
the  two.*  And  if  there  be  still  any  shadow  of  doubt  as  to  the 
missionary  triumphs  in  Amoy,  where  Protestantism  "  grew  and 
prevailed  so  mightily,"  the  evidence  of  the  latest  Protestant 
writer  on  China  will  effectually  remove  it.  "  I  was  informed," 
says  Mr.  Oliphant,  in  1859,  "by  a  high  clerical  Protestant 
authority,  that,  out  of  the  mass  of  Protestant  converts  hitherto 
made,  there  were  only  five  whom  he  really  believed  to  be  sin- 
cere."! Such,  by  their  own  confession,  was  the  result,  after 
so  many  years  of  enormous  expenditure,  of  all  the  Protestant 
attempts,  not  in  Amoy  only,  but  in  the  whole  Chinese  empire ; 
and  as  the  number  of  the  missionaries  was  two  hundred,  it 
follows,  by  the  testimony  of  this  "  high  clerical  authority," 
unless  his  estimate  was  too  sanguine,  that  each  of  them  has 
succeeded  in  making  one-fortieth  part  of  a  convert  in  half  a 
century, — while  each  of  these  precarious  converts  has  proba- 
bly cost  England  and  America  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  million 
sterling. 

The  same  cases  wThich  occurred  at  Amoy,  where  a  few  pagan 
Chinese  were  willing  to  attend  the  Protestant  service  as  long  as 
they  were  paid  for  doing  so,  are  recorded  also  at  Hong- Kong, 
and  in  the  other  ports  which  Mr.  Smith  visited.  Thus  he  tells 
us  of  one  A-tah,  who  had  allowed  the  American  missionaries  to 
give  him  "  an  excellent  education,"  and  of  course  a  gratuitous 
one,  but  who  defrauded  them  at  last  of  the  equivalent  upon 
which  they  had  calculated,  in  the  shape  of  future  service  to  be 
rendered  to  them  by  their  accomplished  pupil.  "  A-tah  has 
recently  abandoned  the  missionaries  at  Hong-Kong,"  bays  Mr. 
Smith,  "  and  connected  himself  with  the  mercantile  establish- 
ment of  Powtinqua," — a  position  to  which,  no  doubt,  he  had 
long  been  aspiring,  and  fur  which,  thanks  to  his  teachers,  he 
was  now  fully  qualified.  The  Americans  might  well  regret 
"  the  difficulty  and  disapp  intment,"  and  desire  some  better 

*  See  p.  304. 

f  Lord  Elgin's  Mission,  vol.  i.,  cli.  xiii.,  p.  254. 


170  CHAPTER    II. 

return  for  all  that  he  had  cost  them ;  for  of  one  of  their  establish- 
ments we  are  told,  u  the  annual  expenses  of  the  missionaries  are 
eleven  thousand  dollars."*  Nearly  twenty  years  ago,  "  the 
American  missionaries  in  China  represented  no  less  than  six 
missionary  societies ;"f  and  "up  to  18 47,  the  number  sent  to 
China,  not  including  females,  was  already  one  hundred  and 
sixteen"  \ 

To  return  to  Amoy.  We  next  find  Mr.  Smith  in  communi- 
cation with  a  certain  Ban-hea,  "  a  constant  visitor  of  the  mis- 
sionaries," who,  he  says,  was  "  an  old  man,  who  was  formerly 
inclined  to  embrace  the  Koman  Catholic  religion,  but  was  de- 
terred by  fear  of  persecution."  Ban-hea  seems  to  have  under- 
stood that  his  new  friends  were  not  likely  to  lead  him  into  such 
peril.  Morrison  used  to  say,  that  if  there  were  no  danger, 
"several  of  iny  people  would  avow  their  belief  in  the  Gospel, — 
but  they  are  afraid. "§  Arid  Mr.  Lay,  an  American  missionary, 
considerately  excuses  their  hesitation.  "  I  acknowledge,"  he 
says,  "  that  the  subject  is  often  afraid  ;  and  no  marvel,  for  who, 
unless  he  were  animated  with  a  spirit  of  martyrdom,  would 
not  fear  the  hell  of  a  Chinese  prison,  or  the  revolting  tortures  of 
a  trial  ?"||  Yet  in  this  very  city  of  Amoy,  where  the  Protestant 
missionaries  were  holding  their  clandestine  meetings,  and 
whispering  to  their  timid  visitors  and  to  one  another  their  fears 
of  a  prison  and  a  trial,  the  Catholic  Chinese,  "  animated,"  like 
the  primitive  Christians,  u  with  the  spirit  of  martyrdom,"  were 
acting  as  Mr.  Smith  describes  in  the  following  words  :  "  The 
Koman  Catholics  are  numerous  in  some  districts  of  the  neigh- 
boring mainland.  The  French  ambassador  and  suite,  during 
their  recent  visit  to  Amoy,  visited  a  village  about  forty  miles 
distant,  in  which  nearly  the  whole  population  were  Roman 
Catholics.  .  .  .  His  Excellency  afterwards  spoke  of  his  heart  be- 
ing kindled  with  religious  enthusiasm,  as  he  beheld  the  joyous 
spectacle  of  the  inhabitants  coming  forth  with  crosses  and 
medals  hanging  on  their  bosoms.  About  five  hundred  persons 
in  this  village,  and  the  same  number  in  some  neighboring  vil- 
lages, professed  Christianity."  And  they  professed  it  openly, 
without  "  fear  of  persecution  ;"  for  Mr.  Smith  adds,  that  they 
had  nearly  completed  a  chapel,  "  estimated  to  cost  eighteen 
hundred  dollars. "T 

Some  years  after  Mr.  Smith's  adventures,  the  Chinese  Chris- 

*  Colonial  Church  Chronicle,  vol.  v.,  396. 

Journal  of  American  Oriental  Society,  vol.  i.,  p.  46. 

Scenes  in  China,  by  Mrs.  Henrietta  Shuck,  Missionary  in  China,  p.  246. 
|  Memoirs,  vol.  ii.,  p.  369. 

The  Chinese  as  they  are,  ch.  vii.,  p.  72. 

P.  486. 


MISSIONS   IN    CHINA.  171 

tians,  in  various  parts  of  the  empire,  were  still  exhibiting  the 
same  instructive  contrast  which  produced  so  little  impression 
on  his  mind.  The  Abbe  Hue  has  given  examples  in  his  latest 
work,  which  are  sufficiently  curious  to  deserve  a  moment's 
attention,  especially  as  they  will  be  found  to  afford  a  suitable 
commentary  upon  Mr.  Smith's  narrative.  At  Tching-tou-fou, 
a  capital  city,  a  young  man  "  threw  himself  on  his  knees"  be- 
fore the  Abbe,  "  made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  begged  his 
blessing."  "Such  an  act,"  says  this  celebrated  missionary, 
"  in  presence  of  the  bonzes,  and  a  crowd  of  curious  witnesses, 
testified  a  lively  faith  and  remarkable  courage."  "  He  began 
to  tell  me,"  continues  M.  Hue,  "  without  the  least  restraint,  of 
the  numerous  Christians  in  the  capital,"  and  having  professed 
openly  his  faith,  proceeded  loudly  to  attack  "  the  idols  and 
superstition  of  the  bonzes."* 

In  another  city,  Tchao  and  his  family  behaved  with  such 
courage  in  his  presence,  "  that  even  the  mandarins  congratu- 
lated them ;"  arid  at  the  departure  of  the  missionary,  crowds 
of  the  Christians  assembled,  to  bid  him  farewell :  "  all  wore 
their  rosaries  round  their  necks,  threw  themselves  on  their 
knees,  made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  in  chorus  demanded  our 
blessing.  We  did  not  observe  that  this  religious  act  excited 
the  least  movement  of  hostility  or  raillery  among  the  heathens. 
They  maintained  a  respectful  silence,  and  contented  themselves 
with  saying:  'these  are  the  Christians,  who  are  asking  the 
chiefs  of  their  religion  to  obtain  happiness  for  them  from 
Heaven.'  v  On  another  occasion,  in  the  province  of  Su-tchuen, 
he  saw  "a  great  number  of  Christians  going  in  procession,  with 
'banners  flying,  to  celebrate  a  festival  in  a  neighboring  village."f 
Such  was  the  conduct  of  Catholic  Chinese,  not  in  the  sea- 
port towns,  but  in  the  very  heart  of  the  empire. 

Mr.  Smith,  to  whom  we  must  once  more  return,  saw  other 
"  visitors"  at  Amoy,  who  consorted  with  his  colleagues,  but 
"  had  not  yet  shown  any  decided  proof  of  a  change  of  heart." 
They  had  "  ceased  to  worship  idols,"  at  least  they  said  so,  "  but 
they  had  not  yet  generally  adopted  the  decided  course  of  ex- 
pelling the  image  from  their  household."  And  accordingly, 
when  Mr.  Smitli  told  a  .Chinese  that  one  Ta-laou-yay  "  had 
put  away  his  idols,"  the  former  "  called  him  an  old  hypocrite, 
and  asserted,  that  if  he  could  gain  admission  into  the  interior 
of  the  house,  he  doubted  not  that  we  should  find  the  idols  in 
some  other  room. "if  How  is  it  that  in  all  heathen  lands,  only 
the  vile  and  the  worthless  are  found  to  gravitate  towards  the 

L 'Empire  Ghinois,  toine  i.,  ch.  i.,  p.  39. 

Oh.  ii.,  p.  51 ;  ch.  vi.,  p.  270 ;  ch.  vii.,  p.  333. 

Visit.  &c..  D.  399  :  Cf.  u.  412. 


f  Ch.  ii.,  p.  51 ;  ch.  vi.,  p.  270  ; 
$   Visit,  &c.,  p.  399  ;  Cf.  p.  412. 


172  CHAPTER  II. 

emissaries  of  Protestantism,  or  to  hold  intercourse  with  them ; 
while  they  who  are  filled  with  noble  and  generous  thoughts, 
and  willing  to  manifest  them  in  action,  instinctively  ally  them- 
selves and  their  destiny  with  the  teachers  of  the  Catholic  faith  ? 
We  have  seen  that  Mr.  Smith  is  only  able  to  record  the  in- 
sensibility of  the  Chinese  to  the  invitations  and  caresses  of 
Protestantism,  except  as  an  occasion  of  gainful  traffic ;  but  he 
had  frequent  opportunities  of  witnessing  their  appreciation  of 
teachers  of  another  order.  Wherever  he  directed  his  steps,  by 
land  or  water,  he  was  met  by  the  unwelcome  apparition  of 
Catholic  converts.  He  is  at  Shang  hae,  where  Dr.  Ball  found, 
to  his  great  mortification,  only  "seven  or  eight  Chinese"  pen- 
sioners on  Protestant  bounty ;  though,  as  Mr.  Scarth  notices, 
there  were  missionaries  of  every  sect,  "  Protestants,  Lutherans, 
Calvinists,  Calvinistical  Seceders,  Baptists,  Sabbatarians,  &c."* 
Of  this  city,  Mr.  Smith  says :  "  In  the  city  and  neighborhood 
there  are  large  numbers  of  Roman  Catholic  professors  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  diocese  of  their  bishop  is  computed  to  contain 
about  sixty  thousand  Roman  Catholics."  If  he  amuses  his 
leisure  by  inquiries  into  the  system  of  transporting  grain  in 
China,  he  learns  that u  of  the  six  thousand  junks  which  annually 
bring  down  the  grain  for  the  emperor  from  Tartary,  many  are 
manned  by  Roman  Catholic  sailors."  But  the  grace  of  conver- 
sion had  not  been  confined  to  men  who,  like  the  first  Apostles, 
had  passed  their  lives  on  the  water ;  and  who,  as  Monseigneur 
de  Besy,  apostolic  administrator  of  .Nankin,  relates  in  184:3, 
"  direct  their  boats  hither  and  thither,  wherever  they  hope  to 
meet  a  minister  of  the  True  God.  They  often  assemble  in  the 
evening,  to  the  number  of  twenty  barks,  in  the  middle  of  the 
river,  and  sing  in  choir  their  prayers,  which  always  conclude 
with  an  invocation  to  '  Mary  conceived  without  sin.'  Their 
prayers  must  ascend  as  an  agreeable  incense  to  the  Throne  of 
the  Lamb."  At  Ningpo,  the  Catholic  converts,  Mr.  Smith  tells 
us,  were  not  fishermen,  but  principally  belonged  to  the  middle 
class  of  tradesmen."!  In  this  city,  we  are  informed  by  Sir 
John  Davis,  there  are  no  less  than  thirteen  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries ;":£  and  though  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants  are 
barely  conscious  of  their  presence,  except  as  dispensers  of 
medicine,  such  was  the  progress  of  the  Catholic  religion,  that 
"  the  year  1848  witnessed  the  erection  of  a  church  without  diffi- 
culty in  the  centre  of  the  town  of  Ningpo,  the  mandarins 
themselves  granting  the  ground  for  the  building. "§ 

*  Twelve  Years  in  China,  eh.  viii.,  p.  80. 
P.  244. 

China,  since  the  Peace,  by  Sir  J.  Davis,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  255. 
Annals,  vol.  xi.,  p.  15. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  173 

A  little  later  Mr.  Smith  is  in  the  province  of  Fokien,  in  the 
northern  part  of  which,  u  at  the  distance  of  one  hundred  miles 
from  Foo-Chow,  there  is  a  Popish  Bishop,  a  Spaniard,  ninety 
years  of  age,  who  has  been  fifty  years  in  the  country.  There 
is  also  a  Popish  college ;  and  the,  Romish  converts  are  said  to 
be  more  numerous  than  the  Pagan  inhabitants  in  some  of  these 
districts,  so  that  they  are  too  powerful  to  become  the  victims 
of  persecution."* 

In  reading  this  narrative  by  such  a  writer,  we  are  reminded 
of  the  forcible  remark  of  the  Abbe  Faivre,  one  of  the  Lazarist 
missionaries  in  China.  "  Protestant  missions,"  he  observes, 
"will  not  have  been  altogether  without  result  in  these  coun- 
tries ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  they  will  have  proved  their  own 
complete  sterility  ;  and,  in  the  next,  the  Protestant  missionaries 
will  be  forced  to  render  this  testimony,  that  wherever  they 
have  been,  they  have  seen  the  Catholic  religion  established,  the 
faithful  full  of  fervor,  and  the  ranks  of  the  missionaries  con- 
tinually recruited. "f 

Sometimes  Mr.  Smith  comes  into  actual  contact  with  Chinese 
Christians,  and  he  is  always  careful  to  record  his  impression  of 
such  interviews.  He  is  in  a  boat  on  the  river  Min,  and  the 
crew,  who  probably  knew  nothing  of  the  character  of  their 
passenger,  u  on  their  first  coming  on  board,  crossed  themselves 
repeatedly  on  the  forehead,  cheeks,  and  breast,  after  the  most 
approved  Roman  Catholic  fashion."  Their  religion  was  evi- 
dently a  reality,  and  they  were  "  not  ashamed  of  the  Cross  of 
Christ ;"  but  this  was  not  the  reflection  which  their  Christian 
behavior  excited  in  Mr.  Smith.  Presently  he  meets  "  about  a 
hundred  villagers,  and  finding  that  they  were  principally  pro- 
fessors of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,"  one  of  his  party  took 
the  opportunity  of  informing  them,  that  the  Mother  of  God 
"was  only  a  sinful  mortal  like  ourselves  !"  upon  which  he  adds, 
"  they  appeared  to  be  somewhat  staggered,  and  looked  in  his 
face  as  if  incredulous  and  distrustful."  Yet  that  significant 
look  had  no  lesson  for  Mr.  Smith  and  his  companions,  who 
were  perhaps  ignorant  that  the  very  Turks  reproach  Protestants 
for  their  irreverence  towards  Her  whom  even  Mahometans 
honor  as  the  Mother  of  Christ.J 

But  Mr.  Smith  had  other  adventures  not  less  instructive  than 
this.  "  I  visited  a  Corean  junk,"  he  says,  "  manned  by  Roman 
Catholic  sailors,  and  lying  in  the  river  off  the  custom-house." 
The  captain  of  this  junk — which  had  crossed  the  broad  waters 

*  P.  352. 

|  Annals  vol  i.,  p.  321. 

\  See  D'Herbelot,  Bibliotheque  Orientate,  art.  Miriam;  and  Lady-  Sliiel's 
Life  and  Manners  in  Persia,  ck.  vi.,  p.  87. 


174:  CHAPTER   II. 

of  the  Yellow  sea,  not  for  lucre,  but  from  a  motive  of  religion 
— had  lost  "his  own  father  and  grandfather"  by  martyrdom. 
But  this  had  not  daunted  him,  nor  his  Christian  crew  ;  and  Mr. 
Smith  tells  us  that  "  their  only  object  in  making  so  long  and 
perilous  a  voyage  was  to  obtain  a  bishop  for  Corea,  whom  they 
would  carry  back  in  their  junk."  For  months  they  had  been 
at  anchor  alongside  that  custom-house,  answering  the  inquisitive 
demands  of  the  officials  with  such  pretexts  as  their  ingenuity 
could  devise,  and  patiently  waiting,  at  the  sacrifice  of  time, 
and  braving  the  perils  of  discovery,  till  God.  should  bring  their 
bishop  to  them.  To  these  fearless  Christians,  Mr.  Smith, 
unmindful  that  he  stood  in  presence  of  a  company  of  confessors 
with  whom  religion  was  the  chief  concern  of  life,  presented  a 
number  of  his  books ;  but  within  an  hour  they  had  detected 
their  real  nature,  and  came  "  to  return  the  whole  of  the  books, 
and  to  decline  the  present  from  me."  It  is  satisfactory  to  know, 
on  Mr.  Smith's  authority,  that  at  last  "  they  accomplished  the 
object  of  their  visit,  and  took  back  a  bishop  and  three  priests. 
The  bishop  had  already  been  seven  years  a  missionary  in  one 
of  the  interior  provinces  :"* — and  now  he  was  on  his  way, 
escorted  by  the  children  of  martyrs,  to  shed  his  own  blood 
whenever  God  should  require  the  sacrifice.  To  him  it  does  not 
appear  that  Mr.  Smith  ventured  to  offer  any  books. 

But  his  stock  was  not  yet  exhausted,  and  he  was  not  easily 
discouraged.  To  a  Buddhist  priest,  he  says,  "I  gave  a  tract, 
which  he  was  unable  to  read,  and  which  I  received  again." 
Others  retained  his  presents,  but  "  not  one  of  them,"  he  says, 
"  could  read,"  which  must  have  diminished  their  value.  And 
then  he  crossed  the  stream  and  "  landed  on  the  south  side  of 
the  river,  but  found  none  of  the  villagers  able  to  read.  I 
ascertained,  however,  that  there  were  some  Roman  Catholics 
who  were  able  to  read."  So  he  sent  them  some  of  his  tracts. 

Thus  far  he  had  clung  to  the  coast,  like  all  his  brethren,  and 
scattered  tracts -as  he  went;  but  accustomed  now  to  see  Chinese 
faces,  he  gathers  courage,  and  boldly  determines  upon  "  a  trip 
into  the  interior."  It  is  true  that  what  he  calls  going  to  the 
interior  was  simply  an  excursion  of  a  few  miles  in  a  boat,  on  a 
river  not  unknown  to  Europeans,  and  that  it  required  no  greater 
temerity  than  a  Frenchman  would  display  who  should  venture 
in  a  steamer  from  London  Bridge  to  Richmond.  Of  course  the 
object  of  the  journey  was  to  distribute  tracts,  which  the  people 
could  not  read,  and  which  his  own  friends  have  told  us  were 
not  worth  reading  if  they  could.  The  expedition  starts,  not 
without  a  quickening  of  the  pulse  at  the  possible  perils  of  the 

*  P.  154. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  175 

voyage.  Both  shores  are  carefully  scanned,  and  the  rowers  duly 
prepared  for  a  backward  move  in  case  of  sudden  emergencies. 
Mr.  Smith  directs  his  anxious  glance  on  every  side,  book  in 
hand,  when  at  length  an  object  strikes  his  eye.  "Watching 
my  opportunity,"  he  says, — and  we  almost  share  his  emotion, — 
"1  folded  up  the  book,  and  .  .  .  threw  it  safely  on  the  dry 
bank"*  This  daring  feat  accomplished,  the  bold  missionary 
and  his  companions,  smiling  perhaps  at  their  own  courage, 
hurried  back  to  the  neighboring  town. 

This  was  Mr.  Smith's  plan  for  the  conversion  of  China.  It 
was  not  successful,  perhaps  because  it  was  so  entirely  new. 
Neither  St.  Paul  nor  St.  Barnabas,  so  far  as  we  know,  were 
much  given  to  the  distribution  of  tracts,  nor  did  they  spend 
their  days  in  rowing  along  the  shores  of  the  ^Egean  or  the 
Adriatic,  looking  for  "  dry  banks"  on  which  to  deposit  their 
message  to  the  Heathen.  They  delivered  it  themselves,  heed- 
ing neither  stripes,  nor  imprisonment,  nor  death,  but  rejoicing 
that  they  were  counted  worthy  to  suffer  for  Christ's  sake ;  a 
mode  of  preaching  the  Gospel  which  Catholic  missionaries 
have  always  imitated,  not  in  China  alone,  but,  as  we  shall  see 
hereafter,  in  every  region  of  the  earth. 

We  might  now,  not  unwillingly,  turn  from  Mr.  Smith  to 
other  witnesses,  who  claim  at  least  a  moment's  attention,  but 
that  he  has  reappeared,  in  a  new  form,  on  the  scenes  which  we 
have  just  visited.  In  1858  we  hear  of  him  again,  and  this  time 
not  as  the  agent  of  a  missionary  society,  but  as  an  Anglican 
bishop  in  China.  The  lapse  of  years  has  not  much  altered  his 
views  on  either  of  the  subjects  which  he  had  previously 
handled — the  Chinese,  or  the  Catholics.  He  has  not  begun  to 
convert  the  one,  nor  ceased  to  hate  the  other.  Long  years 
before,  he  had  declared,  that  he  preferred  even  the  Mahometans 
of  China  to  the  Catholics.  "I  always  felt  a  sympathy,"  he 
said,  "  with  the  poor  dispersed  disciples  of  Islam  in  this  pagan 
wild,  and  regarded  their  denunciation  of  idols,  and  their 
worship  of  one  God,  as  a  comparative  approximation  to  OUT 
own  religion"-^ — the  comparison  being  with  the  religion  of 
Alfred  the  Great,  St.  Anselm,  and  Sir  Thomas  More.  Dr. 
Smith  prefers  the  disciples  of  Ali  and  Omar,  who  blaspheme 
Christ,  to  the  children  of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Bernard,  who 
adore  Him.  And  he  is  the  same  in  1858  as  he  was  in  1814. 

On  the  18th  of  October,  of  the  former  year,  he  wrote  from 
Shang-hae  to  "  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  :"  "  I  confess," 
he  said,  "  that  I  have  gathered  lessons  of  moderate  expectation 
from  the  fruitlessness  of  my  past  appeals  for  help.  In  the  tenth 

*  P.  148.  f  P.  213. 


176  CHAPTER   II. 

year  of  my  episcopate  I  behold  but  few  signs  of  any  great  and 
sustained  movement  of  6*ur  Church  for  the  evangelization  of  the 
Chinese  race.  ...  As  to  missions  of  our  Church  among  the 
Chinese,  after  fourteen  years  since  my  first  landing  on  these 
shores,  I  still  see  (with  one  exception)" — we  have  seen  what 
the  exception  was  worth — u  but  little  progress  made,  and  but 
inconsiderable  results  achieved."  There  is  much  more  in  the 
letter,  which  we  need  not  quote,  because  it  was  thus  appreciated 
on  the  spot  by  a  Protestant  writer,  in  the  Ilong-Kong  Register* 
"We  cannot  but  regret  the  tone  of  jealousy  with  regard  to  his 
Roman  Catholic  brethren  that  pervades  his  letter.  It  is  not 
by  indications  of  a  sectarian  spirit  such  as  this  that  the  cause 
of  true  religion  and  Christianity  is  to  be  advanced  in  China. 
.  .  .  Their  zeal  is  equal,  their  self  devotion  in  many  instances 
far  greater,  and  yet,  because  they  do  not  agree  with  the  Bishop 
of  Victoria,  or  own  his  spiritual  jurisdiction,  they  are  to  be 
looked  on  as  dangerous  foes !  Writing  such  as  this  is  not  only 
unfair,  but  it  is  dangerous." 

And  this  estimate  of  the  Anglican  bishop  seems  to  be  general 
among  such  of  his  co-religionists  as  have  enjoyed  opportunities 
of  judging  him.  uThe  conduct  of  the  bishop,"  says  the  Hong- 
Kong  Daily  Press,  in  the  thirteenth  year  of  his  episcopate, 
"  is  most  reprehensible.  For  the  last  three  years  we  feel  sure 
he  has  not  done  two  months'  work  in  his  diocese.  He  draws 
his  stipend  in  consideration  of  the  performance  of  specified 
duties :  those  duties  he  neglects  for  other  vocations  which  are 
more  lucrative  or  agreeable,  and  we  will  defy  him  to  reconcile 
his  conduct  to  common  honesty,  to  say  nothing  about  his 
duties  as  a  bishop."f 


DR.    BETTELHEIM. 

Perhaps  we  might  have  fitly  concluded  this  narrative  with 
the  story  of  Dr.  Smith,  which  illustrates  so  effectively  the 
nature  of  Anglicanism,  but  one  more  example  shall  be  added, 
because  it  will  serve  the  double  purpose  of  introducing  us  to  a 
new  scene,  and  of  completing  the  tale  to  the  year  18H2.  For 
several  years  Dr.  Bettelheim  represented  an  English  society 
among  the  mild  inhabitants  of  Loo-Choo.  The  ingenuity  of 
this  amiable  people  had  been  exhausted  in  attempts  to  drive 
him  away  by  gentle  means.  "The  Loo-Chooans,"  we  are  told, 
"  had  tried  every  way  to  get  rid  of  him ;  they  had  addressed, 
through  the  Chinese,  to  the  English  minister,  Lord  Palmerston, 

*  Number  43. 

f  Quoted  in  the  Weekly  Register,  November  16, 1861. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  177 

remonstrances  against  the  mission,  which  invariably  closed  with 
the  petition  that  he  would  remove  Bettelheim.  They  urged 
with  much  energy,  that  a  missionary  should  leave  a  country 
when  his  presence  was  not  agreeable  to  its  people."*  But  Dr. 
Bettelheim,  who  was  in  no  danger,  and  received  his  salary 
punctually,  would  not  go.  In  vain  the  courteous  police  of  Loo- 
Choo  collected  the  tracts  which  he  distributed  every  night,  and 
brought  them  to  him,  tied  up  in  neat  parcels,  every  morning. 
But  they  put  him  to  flight  at  last.  "  After  eight  or  nine  years 
of  the  unequal  strife,  Dr.  Bettelheim  sought  for  a  time,  quieter 
scenes  and  more  propitious  circumstances  in  Europe. "j  He 
was  replaced  by  the  feev.  E.  H.  Morton,  "  as  spiritual  teacher 
to  a  people  who  are  about  as  well  prepared  to  receive  Chris- 
tianity as  they  were  when  his  predecessor  went  among  them." 
Mr.  Morton,  however,  speedily  retired,  "  Dr.  Bettelheim  has 
not  since  returned,  and  probably  the  mission  will  not  for  the 
present  be  resumed."  In  1862,  the  Church  Missionary  Society 
still  speak  of  "  the  late  Loo-Choo  Missionary  Committee,"  and 
of  trying  again  when  "  the  way  shall  appear  providentially 
opened.":}: 

TESTIMONY   OF   PROTESTANT   TKAVELLEKS. 

We  have  now  perhaps  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  fortunes  of 
Protestantism  in  China,  as  revealed  by  its  most  conspicuous 
agents,  from  1816  to  1862  ;  and  if  we  still  multiply  evidence 
which  may  seem  superfluous,  it  is  because  each  fresh  witness 
attests  some  special  feature  of  the  contrast  which  all  detect  and 
proclaim.  Some  record  with  involuntary  admiration  the  con- 
tinual progress  of  the  Catholic  missionaries,  their  fortitude  and 
self-denial,  and  the  fervor  of  their  flocks ;  others,  in  spite  of 
their  religious  sympathies,  speak  with  contempt  or  indignation 
of  their  Protestant  contemporaries,  and  disclose  without  hesita- 
tion the  true  character  of  their  followers.  Let  us  hear  a  few 
witnesses  of  both  classes,  before  we  pass  to  the  same  order  of 
facts  in  other  lands. 

In  1858,  Mr.  Minturn,  an  ardent  American  Protestant,  was 
struck  by  "  the  earnestness  with  which  a  numerous  congrega- 
tion of  Chinese  chanted  the  responses  in  the  Romish  cathedral 
at  Shang-hae  ;"§  while  Mr.  D'Ewes,  almost  at  the  same  date,  and 

*  The  Japan  Expedition,  by  J.  W.  Spalding,  U.  S.  Steam  Frigate  "Missis- 
sippi," ch.  vii.,  p.  113 ;  ch.  xiv.,  p.  337. 

f  The  Medical  Missionary  in  China,  by  Win.  Lockhart,  F.R.C.S.,  ch.  xii., 
p.  356  (1861). 

\  Report  of  C.  M.  Society,  p.  16  (1862). 

^  From  New  York  to  Delhi,  ch.  iii.,  p.  33. 

13 


178  CHAPTER  II. 

Mr.  Oliplmnt  a  little  later,  thus  contrasted  the  two  classes  of 
missionaries,  and  their  works,  in  the  same  city :  "  There  is," 
says  Mr.  D'Ewes,  "  both  an  American  and  English  school  for 
the  education  of  Chinese  children,  but,  I  hear,  not  very  well 
attended,  nor  could  I  discover  any  traces  of  Protestant  mis- 
sionary labor  in  the  interior."  And  then  he  continues  thus  : 
"By  far  the  most  extraordinary  establishments  I  saw  at  Shang- 

hae,  were  two  Jesuit  colleges Nothing  can  exceed  the 

order  and  regularity,  and  apparent  harmony,  with  which  these 
extensive  establishments  are  carried  on."  The  Fathers  taught, 
he  adds,  "  sculpture,  painting,  music,  languages,  &c.,  and  evi- 
dently by  able  and  distinguished  masters.  When  it  is  con- 
sidered how  extremely  difficult  it  is  to  obtain  even  a  smattering 
of  the  Chinese  language,  and  how  very  few  Europeans  amongst 
the  commercial  class,  and  even  amongst  our  own  missionaries 
and  diplomatists,  arrive  at  any  thing  like  proficiency,  the  self- 
denying  hard  labor  and  study  of  these  priests  is  truly  wonder- 
ful. The  pupils  appeared  happy,  and  proud  of  their  occupa- 
tions, and  far  more  intelligent  than  the  generality  of  Chinese 
we  met  with."* 

On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Oliphant  says  of  the  Protestant 
schools  in  the  same  place,  "  the  children  are  taught  only  the 
most  rudimentary  works  in  their  own  classics.  Their  education 
seems  likely,  therefore,  to  be  of  little  service  to  them,  either 
amongst  their  own  countrymen  or  foreigners. "f 

But  if  Mr.  Oliphant,  who  has  apparently  no  sympathy  with 
Catholics,  agrees  with  Mr.  D'Ewes  in  his  estimate  of  these 
Protestant  institutions.,  he  thus  describes  another  Catholic  col- 
lege, about  twelve  miles  from  the  city  of  Shang-hae,  where  he 
found  "  eighty  young  men  and  boys  in  the  several  school-rooms, 
deep  in  the  study  of  the  classics  and  polite  learning  of  the 

Chinese the  mission  was  almost  entirely  conducted  by 

Jesuits.  The  best  possible  understanding  evidently  subsisted 
between  them  and  their  pupils,  whose  countenances  all  bore 
evidence  of  happiness  and  contentment.  Notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  twelve  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four  were  devoted  to 
work  or  religious  exercises,  the  establishment  was  kept  scrupu- 
lously clean  ;  the  dormitories  were  models  of  neatness ;  so  that 
habits  foreign  to  the  Chinese  domestic  character  were  being  in- 
stilled into  the  inmates.":): 

In  1862,  we  hear  once  more  of  this  college  from  an  Anglican 
chaplain,  who  could  not  conceal  his  reluctant  admiration,  but 


*  China,  &c.,  by  J.  D'Ewes,  Esq.,  cli.  viii.,  p.  291. 
f  Lord  Elgin's  Mission. 
\  Ibid. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  179 

who  laments  that  the  Anglican  mission  at  Shang-hae  "  is  not 
in  a  more  flourishing  condition."  The  latter,  he  says,  is  inferior 
even  to  the  American  ;  to  which,  however,  he  does  not  attribute 
even  a  solitary  convert.  Indeed,  this  gentleman's  volume  is  so 
remarkable  for  the  total  absence  of  religious  allusions,  that  he 
offers  a  kind  of  apology  for  saying  nothing  "  of  my  own  de- 
partment."* His  readers  will  probably  infer  that  he  found 
nothing  to  say. 

The  Marquis  de  Moges,  who  accompanied  the  Baron  Gros  in 
his  first  embassy  to  China,  visited  the  same  college, — at  Zi-ka- 
wei, — and  found  "  nearly  one  hundred  pupils,"  in  an  institu- 
tion "far  from  all  European  aid,"  but  which,  he  says,  was  often 
visited  by  mandarins,  one  of  whom  "  forwarded  to  Pekin,  to  a 
member  of  the  Imperial  Academy,  the  compositions  of  some 
of  the  elder  scholars,  which  were  returned  with  corrections  and 
most  encouraging  remarks. rf  M.  de  Keroulee  also,  at  a  still 
later  period,  speaks  of  meeting  a  pupil  of  the  Pere  Delamarre, 
who.  in  addition  to  the  French  language,  spoke  Latin  with  a 
precision  and  fluency  which  excited  the  admiration  of  men 
educated  in  the  colleges  of  France.:): 

Mr.  Oliphant's  experience  seems  to  have  been  everywhere 
of  the  same  character.  He  goes  to  the  Catholic  mission  at 
Chusan,  and  there  a  Lazarist  Father  "  did  the  honors  of  the 
establishment  with  great  simplicity  and  cordiality.  We  in- 
spected his  industrial  farm,  cultivated  by  the  boys  of  the  school, 
a  clean  chubby-looking  set  of  little  fellows,  with  happy  smiling 
countenances,  very  different  in  expression  from  that  of  Chinese 
youth  generally.  They  evidently  regarded  their  spiritual 

masters  with  feelings  of  affection  and  gratitude We 

afterwards  visited,  with  our  reverend  guide,  a  girl's  hospital  in 
the  town,  which  did  equal  credit  to  his  management  with  the 
rest  of  his  establishment." 

At  another  time  he  goes  to  the  "  cathedral  at  Tonk-a-doo." 
"  Here  one  side  of  the  spacious  area  was  filled  by  a  large  at- 
tendance of  Chinese  female  converts,  whose  devout  demeanor 
testified  to  their  sincerity,  and  whose  neat,  and  occasionally 
handsome  costume,  and  pleasing  countenances,  formed  an 
agreeable  contrast  to  the  majority  of  the  fair  sex  the  stranger 
meets  in  a  Chinese  town." 

At  Shang-hae,  he  says,  "  I  was  informed  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  missions  can  boast  of  converts  even  among  the  man- 
darins ;  while  numerous  instances  of  devotion,  and  acts  of 

*  How  We  got  to  Peldn,  by  the  Rev.  R.  J.  L.  M'Ghee,  Chaplain  to  the  Forces, 
ch.  iii.,  pp.  41, 42  (1862). 
f  Souvenirs  d'u/ie  Ambasmde,  ch.  vii.,  p.  180. 
\  Un  Voyage  d  Pekin,  par  Georges  de  Keroulee.  ch.  iii.,  p.  39  (Paris,  1861). 


180  CHAPTER   IT. 

private  charity  to  the  missionaries  and  their  converts,  were 
related,  both  on  the  part  of  those  Chinese  who  were  members 
of  the  Church,  and  of  those  who  had  merely  benefited  by  its 
institutions."  On  the  other  hand,  speaking  of  the  results  of 
Protestant  education,  especially  at  Hong-Kong, — and  we  shall 
find  the  same  characteristic  fact  in  every  other  country  of  the 
world,  he  observes,  "  in  too  many  instances  the  knowledge  they 
have  acquired  only  serves  to  increase  their  evil  influence"* 
And  this  statement  is  confirmed  in  the  number  of  the  Hong- 
ITong  Daily  Press,  already  quoted :  "  All  the  schemes  which 
have  been  hitherto  attempted,"  says  that  journal,  "  have  re- 
sulted in  utter  failures.  English  education  has  been  given  to 
Chinese  youths  with  no  other  object  that  we  could  see,  but  to 
qualify  them  for  hypocrites  or  for  sharpers" 

Commander  Lindesay  Brine,  an  intelligent  British  officer, 
who  does  not  disguise  his  Protestant  sympathies,  observes  once 
more,  in  1862,  of  the  Catholic  school  attached  to  the  cathedral 
at  Shang-hae :  "  I  found  the  children  at  their  lessons,  and  was 
astonished  to  see  such  a  well-dressed,  bright-looking  set  of  boys, 
in  all  respects  far  superior  to  the  average  of  Chinese  lads  met 
with  elsewhere ;"  and  then  he  adds,  like  all  the  other  witnesses, 
"having  shortly  before  observed  the  children  of  the  Protestant 
schools  in  Ning-po,  I  was  not  prepared  to  find  such  a  marked 
and  favorable  contrast,  and  was  at  a  loss  to  account  for  it  until 
made  acquainted  with  the  very  different  method  of  tuition  and 
selection."! 

Let  us  hear  other  witnesses.  The  evidence  of  Colonel  Armine 
Mountain,  formerly  Adjutant-general  of  the  Forces  in  India, 
and  an  eager  advocate  of  Protestant  institutions,  though  cau- 
tiously mutilated  by  a  sensitive  editor,  is  only  rendered  more 
impressive  and  significant  by  that  unusual  process.  "Of  the 
English  missionaries,"  he  says,  "  I  know  nothing ;"  and  then 
he  added  a  statement  which  his  biographer  has  carefully  sup- 
pressed, but  the  substance  of  which  we  may  easily  infer  from 
the  words  which  follow  immediately  in  the  next  sentence  of 
his  letter :  ilJSut  there  is  a  class  of  men  in  China  to  whom, 
however  mistaken  in  their  belief,  we  cannot  refuse  respect, — 
the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries, — men  who,  in  the  guise  of 
natives,  live  in  the  interior,  unknown  to  the  government,  in 
hourly  danger  of  their  lives,  subsisting  upon  the  precarious 
contributions  of  their  followers.":); 

Mr.  Power,  a  gentleman  in  the  British  service,  traces,  in  1853, 

*  Narrative  of  Lord  Elgin's  Mission  to  China  and  Japan,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xii.,  p. 
236 ;  ch.  xiii.,  p.  257 

f  The  Taeping  Rebellion  in  China,  ch.  iii.,  pp.  53,  60. 
\  Memoirs  of  Colonel  Armine  Mountain,  C  B.,  cli.  viii.,  p.  212. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  181 

in  expressive  words,  the  same  contrast.  He  is  at  Koo-Lung- 
Soo, — where  the  Anglican  missionaries,  as  we  shall  be  informed 
presently,  had  only  two  converts,  who  displayed  their  piety  by 
"  running  off  with  the  communion  plate," — and  he  writes  as 
follows  :  "  The  worthy  Fathers  Zea  and  Aguilar  were  both  quite 
young  men,  but  in  devotion  to  their  duty,  in  true  Christian 
charity,  benevolence,  and  strong  religious  faith,  they  appeared 
to  me  to  surpass  any  men  I  ever  met  with,  they  were  so  forget- 
ful of  self,  and  so  full  of  pity  and  compassion  for  others."  And 
then  he  describes  the  Protestant  missionaries :  "  They  are  not 
of  a  character  generally  to  have  much  success.  They  settle 
themselves  down  at  the  ports,  surround  themselves  with  com- 
forts, and  confine  their  labors  to  the  distribution  of  boxes  full 
of  tracts,  written  generally  in  very  bad  Chinese.  The  China- 
man sees  one  man  devoting  all  his  energies  to  the  one  purpose, 
and  that  an  unselfish  one ;  sacrificing  comfort,  health,  society, 
all  that  can  make  life  desirable ;  the  other  comes  when  he  can 
do  so  with  perfect  safety,  bringing  a  wife  and  family,  squab- 
bling for  the  best  houses,  higgling  for  wares,  and  provoking 
contempt  bjr  a  lazy  life."* 

It  might  seem  impossible  to  add  any  thing  to  such  a  picture, 
yet  another  Protestant,  a  member  of  an  English  university, 
has  contrived  to  do  so.  "When  in  China,"  says  Mr.  Sirr,  "  we 
are  grieved  to  our  heart's  core  to  see  the  servants  of  the  Romish 
Church  indefatigably  and  zealously  working,  making  converts  of 
the  Chinese,  regarding  neither  difficulties  nor  discouragement ; 
while  too  many  Protestant  missionaries  occupy  their  time  in 
secular  pursuits,  trading  and  trafficking."  This,  he  observes, 
is  particularly  odious,  because  they  have  all  "  ample  salaries ;" 
and  he  goes  on  thus :  "  Alas !  the  lives  of  many  missionaries, 
whom  we  have  seen  in  China,  and  elsewhere,  are  totally  foreign 
to  and  at  variance  with  their  sacred  calling,  much  of  their  time 
being  passed  in  attending  auctions,  buying  at  one  price,  and 
transferring  their  purchase  to  a  native  at  an  advanced  rate,  al- 
though they  receive  a  handsome  allowance,  more  than  suffi- 
cient for  their  support.  .  .  .  The  conduct  of  many  missionaries 
is  most  unbecoming,  whether  considered  in  a  Christian  or  social 
view  ;"  and  then  he  adds,  from  his  own  observation,  that  even 
tiie  pagan  Chinese,  filled  with  contempt  for  such  pretended 
teachers  of  religion,  commonly  call  them  "  Lie-preaching 
devils"^  Never,  probably,  were  so-called  "  missionaries" 
thus  described  by  their  own  associates;  and  if  "the  first 
herald"  of  Protestantism  in  China  had  but  a  feeble  claim  to 

*  Residence  in  China,  ch.  xv.,  pp.  151, 157  (1853). 
f  China  and  the  Chinese,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  x.,  p.  216. 


182  CHAPTER   II. 

our  esteem,  it  must  be  admitted  that  his  numerous  successors 
have  still  less. 

It  is  to  be  observed  also,  as  a  special  feature  in  the  history  of 
Protestant  missions,  that  the  latest  account  of  them  is  always 
the  worst.  In  the  year  1861,  after  half  a  century  of  barren 
toil  and  incalculable  expenditure,  the  Ilong-Kong  Daily  Press, 
a  journal  devoted  to  British  and  Protestant  interests,  thus  esti- 
mates both  the  missionaries  and  their  work.  After  a  candid 
admission,  recorded  in  the  very  midst  of  the  men  whom  he 
describes,  that  the  only  result  of  all  their  labors  was  hopeless 
failure,  this  English  writer  continues  thus  :  u  Instead  of  at- 
tempting to  remedy  the  defect,  they  are  too  conceited  to  admit 
it.  There  is  as  much  devotion  in  all  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries we  know  of  in  the  south  of  China  as  there  is  in  a 
bootjack.  Their  shameless  indifference  to  their  unscrupulous 
laches  is  really  incredible  to  those  who  have  not  witnessed  it. 
We  have  tried  time  and  again  to  arouse  them  to  a  sense  of 
their  duties,  but  it  seems  to  us  that  they  are  dead  to  the  voice 
of  truth,  and  are  content  to  eat  the  bread  of  idleness,  so  long  as 
they  possess  the  power  to  deceive  the  patrons  who  maintain 
them." 

Yet  the  gentlemen  who  are  thus  described  by  those  who 
know  them  best  are  never  weary  either  of  commending  their 
own  labors,  or  of  exposing  their  futility.  In  1862  the  Rev.  J. 
Bur  don  informs  the  Church  Missionary  Society,*  that  at  Hang- 
Chow,  a  city  of  three  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  he  hired 
a  house,  with  the  "  consent  of  the  authorities,"  and  began  to 
preach  the  doctrine  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  Nobody  in- 
terfered with  him,  "  inquirers  presented  themselves,"  they 
"  seemed  in  a  prepared  state  of  mind  to  hear  and  accept  the 
Gospel,"  and  u  came  frequently  to  talk  about  the  truths  of 
God's  word."  But  the  usual  ludicrous  climax  was  at  hand. 
u  I  was  doomed  to  be  disappointed  !  One  by  one  they  discon- 
tinued their  visits,  and  1  fear  that  now  they  have  lost  their  in- 
terest altogether,  if,  indeed,  they  ever  really  had  any."  Then 
he  tells  a  story,  in  the  usual  terms,  of  one  individual  "  becom- 
ing connected  with  Christianity,"  and  finally,  "  the  removal  of 
the  missionaries,"  on  the  arrival  of  their  former  disciples,  the 
Tae-pings,  terminates  the  tale. 

Lastly,  in  Ib62,  we  have  the  testimony  of  the  various  Eng- 
lish gentlemen,  including  a  Protestant  clergyman,  who  were 
members  of  the  scientific  expedition  conducted  by  Colonel 
Sarel,  with  the  object  of  tracing  a  passage  into  India  across  the 
western  frontier  of  China.  These  witnesses,  who  prosecuted 

*  Report,  1862,  p.  193. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  183 

their  long  journey,  including  the  navigation  of  the  Yang-Tsze, 
throughout  a  course  of  eighteen  hundred  miles,  were  riot  exempt 
from  the  usual  prejudices  of  their  countrymen.  But  they  were 
men  of  honor  and  of  cultivated  minds,  and  disdained  to  mis- 
represent the  facts  which  they  encountered,  not  without  surprise 
and  mortification,  wherever  they  set  foot  in  the  interior  prov- 
inces of  the  empire.  Their  evidence  will  fitly  close  the  series 
which  commenced  forty  years  before  their  arrival  in  China. 

They  are  already  far  up  the  Yang-Tsze,  when  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Tnng-Yan  rapid  they  overtake  a  passenger  junk. 
"  The  passengers,"  they  observe,  "  were  a  high  mandarin  arid 
his  family,  and  they  turned  out  to  be  Roman  Catholics."  In 
this  case  they  had  an  opportunity  of  noticing  that  religion  has 
still,  as  of  old,  its  conquests  among  the  aristocracy  of  China. 

Presently  they  are  at  Wan,  and  here  they  find  matter  for 
still  graver  reflections.  "There  is  little  doubt,"  says  one  of  the 
historians  of  the  expedition,  u  that  the  Roman  Catholics  have 
done  much  more  in  China  than  the  world  gives  them  credit  for, 
and  from  this  place  upwards  we  observed  numerous  Christians 
among  the  Chinese.  They  used  to  make  themselves  known  to 
us  by  the  sign  of  the  cross.  The  number  of  Christians  in  the 
province  of  Sz'chuan  is  said  to  be  about  one  hundred  thousand. 
There  are  two  bishops,  and  we  had  subsequently  the  pleasure 
of  meeting  one  of  them,  as  well  as  two  of  his  priests,  and  my 
remembrance  of  them  will  ever  be  associated  with  the  idea  of 
missionaries  indeed." 

They  continue  their  journey  and  come  to  Hulin,  which  they 
find  "  to  be  almost  entirely  a  Roman  Catholic  village."  The 
inhabitants,  probably  assuming  their  European  visitors  to  be, 
like  themselves,  disciples  of  the  cross,  "  hurried  us  off  to  see  a 
place  of  worship  which  they  had  lately  finished."  This  pious 
work  they  had  completed  in  the  face  of  persecution,  for  they 
related  "  the  shameful  treatment  they  had  received  from  the 
mandarins."  "  This  was  only  one  of  the  many  instances  we 
witnessed,"  says  Dr.  Barton,  k' of  the  good  the  Catholic  priests 
have  done  in  China,  while  throughout  our  journey  we  did  riot 
meet  with  a  single  Protestant." 

At  Chung,  '•  some  more  Roman  Catholics  visited  us  here, 
continuing  to  come  over  in  boats  from  the  town  till  a  late  hour 
....  They  stated  that  the  mandarins  had  persecuted  them  and 
burnt  their  church."  It  is  nearly  three  hundred  years  since 
persecution  first  began  in  this  very  region,  and  we  have  here 
Protestant  testimony  to  the  results  of  the  long  conflict. 

It  was  the  habitual  contemplation  of  these  arid  many  equally 
significant  facts  which  suggested  to  this  company  of  'educated 
Protestants,  who  had  diligently  investigated  the  missionary 


184  CHAPTER   II. 

pretensions  of  their  co-religionists,  the  following  candid  reflec- 
tions :  "To  such  men  as  these,"  their  historian  observes, referring 
to  the  Catholic  missionaries  and  their  works,  "is  due  a  meed  of 
praise  which  I  am  unworthy  to  proclaim,  and  will  therefore 
only  refer  to  the  contrast  between  them  and  the  Protestant 
missionaries"  And  then  he  indicates  the  prominent  feature 
of  the  contrast,  in  terms  exactly  agreeing  with  the  equally 
emphatic  reports  of  Mr.  Sirr,  Mr.  Power,  and  the  other  Protes- 
tant witnesses.  "  Located  among  the  European  and  American 
communities  at  the  open  ports  on  the  coast,  the  Protestant 
missionaries  live  in  all  the  ease  and  comfort  of  civilized  society, 
surrounded  by  their  wives  and  families,  with  dwellings  equal, 
and  often  much  superior,  to  what  they  have  been  accustomed 
to  in  their  own  country.  .  .  I  believe  I  shall  not  be  wrong  when 
I  say  there  is  not  a  single  Protestant  missionary  a  hundred 
miles  distant  from. a  European  settlement."* 


RESULTS    OF   PKOTESTANT   MISSIONS. 

The  testimonies  which  have  now  been  cited  sufficiently 
prepare  us  for  those  which  are  to  follow,  and  it  is  time  to  show, 
as  we  did  in  reviewing  the  Catholic  missions,  what  have  been 
ihejinal  and  admitted  results,  by  exclusively  Protestant  testi- 
mony, of  all  the  costly  efforts  maintained  during  nearly  half  a 
century  by  the  agents  of  English  and  American  societies. 

"  The  number  of  conversions  effected  by  the  Protestants," 
says  M.  Hausmann,  who  dedicates  his  book  to  M.  Guizot,  and 
seems  to  profess  an  equal  indifference  to  all  forms  of  religion, 
"  is  perfectly  insignificant  when  compared  with  those  effected 
by  the  Catholics,  "f 

"The  religion  of  the  Catholics,"  says  Baron  von  Haxthausen, 
"  extends  itself  more  and  more  in  the  north  of  the  empire, 
and  even  in  Pekin  itself  their  number  is  said  to  exceed  forty 
thousand.":): 

Mr.  Montgomery  Martin,  a  warm  opponent  of  the  Catholic 
religion,  observes,  "  Perhaps  there  are  not  more  than  twenty 
or  thirty  Christian  Protestant  Chinese,  while  Catholicism  num- 
bers its  tens  and  hundreds  of  thousands."! 

"Great  progress  has  been  silently  made,"  says  Sir  Oscar 
Oliphant,  in  1857,  though  he  does  not  so  much  as  allude  to  the 

*  Five  Months  on  the  Tang-Tsze,  by  Thomas  W.  Blakiston,  late  Captain 
Royal  Artillery,  ch.  ix.,  p.  155  ;  cli.  x.,  p.  179  ;  ch.  xi.,  pp.  182-5 ;  ch.  xviii.,  p.  319. 
f   Voyage  en  Chine,  tome  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  129. 
i  Etudes  sur  la  Ruszie,  tome  i.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  441. 
§  China,  Political,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  491. 


-  MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  185 

Protestant  attempts,  "  and  continues  to  be  so  made,  in  the  mis- 
sionary field."'* 

"  It  is  superfluous,"  writes  Mr.  Osmond  Tiffany,  with  refer- 
ence to  his  Protestant  companions,  "  to  say  aught  of  mission- 
ary labors,  simply  because  they  have  little  or  no  importance"^ 

The  American  traveller,  Dr.  Ball,  who  spent  all  his  time 
among  the  missionaries,  and  was  their  constant  guest  and  con- 
fidential friend,  though  he  eloquently  describes  their  "  com- 
modious and  very  well-furnished  houses,"  never  so  much  as 
alludes,  throughout  the  whole  of  his  ample  correspondence,  to 
their  making  a  solitary  convert. 

"  There  is  something  inexplicable,"  says  the  Rev.  Howard 
Malcolm,  "  in  the  sterility  of  the  Protestant  missions  ;  for  the 
Catholic  missionaries,  with  very  limited  resources,  have  made 
a  great  many  proselytes ;  their  worship  has  become  popular, 
and  everywhere  excites  the  attention  of  the  public."  And 
again  :  "  Up  to  the  present  period,  the  principal  portion  of 
missionary  labor  has  been  preparatory."^: 

"  Little  has  been  done,"  says  another,  "  by  missionaries  in 
China,  except  the  printing  of  books."§ 

"The  Protestants,"  observes  Mr.  Leitch  Ritchie,  "have  as 
yet  confined  their  efforts  to  the  distribution  of  books  along  the 
seacoast,  the  result  not  being,  in  the  mean  time,  of  any  obvious 
importance."! 

"  We  have  no  proofs,"  adds  a  candid  American  missionary, 
"  that  the  thousands  of  books  thrown  among  this  people  have 
been  the  means  of  converting  one  individual."!" 

"The  activity  of  the  missionaries  of  the  Romish  Church  in 
China,"  says  Sir  John  Davis,  who  has  little  love  for  them, 
"  has  no  rival,  as  to  either  numbers  or  enterprise."** 

"  Since  the  death  of  Dr.  Morrison,-'  observes  the  secretary 
of  the  Religious  Tract  society,  "  little  has  been  done  in  China," 
and  we  have  seen  that  Dr.  Morrison  did  nothing.ff 

"  For  many  a  long  and  toilsome  year,"  says  the  secretary  of 
a  London  missionary  society,  in  1855,  "has  the  Christian  mis- 
sionary been  laboring  for  this  people  .  .  .  unblessed  with 
the  knowledge  of  any  successful  issues  of  his  labor."^ 

"  As  to  missionary  labor  in  China,"  writes  the  Rev.  W.  C. 

China  ;  a  Popular  History,  ch.  v.,  p!  45. 

The  Canton  Chinese,  ch.  x.,  p.  181. 

Travels,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  263. 

Points  about  China  and  the  Chinese,  ch.  xxxii.,  p.  314. 

The  British  World  in  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  230. 

Quoted  by  Dr.  Brown,  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  256. 
**  China,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  235. 

ft  The  People  of  China,  by  the  Religious  Tract  Society,  ch.  xi.,  p.  326. 
\\  Missionary  Gleaner,  December,  1855,  p.  245. 


186  CHAPTER   II. 

« 

Milne,  in  1858,  "  hitherto  this  department  of  enterprise  has 
been  that  of  pioneering,  for  which  service  about  one  hundred 
and  ninety  men  have  enlisted  and  left  their  native  shores."* 

"The  whole  number  of  Protestant  missionaries  in  China," 
says  Mr.  Scarth,  in  1860,  "probably  exceeds  the  number  of 
converts  who  are  not  actually  in  their  pay."  A  little  later  this 
friendly  witness  briefly  describes  the  multitude  of  rival  sects  as 
"a  number  of  different  denominations  of  Christians,  stumbling 
forwards  in  various  directions,  but  with  indifferent  success ;" 
though  he  considers  the  "comfortable  appearance"  of  their 
dwellings  a  proof  "  that  home  is  not  forgotten  in  this  scene  of 
their  weary,  almost  unprofitable  labors."f 

Dr.  Grant  appears  to  sum  up  the  whole  history,  when  he  in- 
forms the  University  of  Oxford  that  "  the  attempts  of  Protest- 
ant bodies  to  evangelize  China  have  signally  failed.";);  Mr. 
Wingrove  Cooke  leaves  nothing  to  be  added,  when  he  declares, 
in  1858,  "  I  will  not  say  that  the  Protestant  missionaries  are 
making  sincere  Chinese  Christians, — those  who  say  this  must 
be  either  governed  by  a  delusion,  or  guilty  of  fraud. "§  A  still 
higher  authority,  who  observes,  in  1861,  that  "  in  the  south  of 
the  empire  (Protestant)  Christianity  among  the  natives  has 
turned  into  ashes,  while  further  north  it  has  generated  into 
blasphemy,"  frankly  adds,  that  "  Protestant  missionary  labor 
is  a  grand  swindle,  and  the  sooner  it  is  denounced  and  exposed 
the  better."]  Lastly,  in  1862, — for  up  to  the  latest  hour  the 
evidence  never  varies, — an  English  Protestant,  who  records 
his  opinion  with  undisguised  repugnance,  laments  once  more 
that,  in  spite  of  "  the  labor  and  funds  that  have  for  so  many 
years  been  devoted"  to  the  teaching  of  Protestantism,  "  the  re- 
sult is  almost  inappreciable.''!" 

Such  are  the  acknowledged  results  of  all  the  enormous  ex- 
penses incurred  by  Protestant  missionary  societies  in  China 
during  this  century.  The  contempt  of  their  own  friends  and 
advocates,  whose  sympathies  they  have  first  abused  and  then 
alienated,  and  the  derision  of  the  pagans,  to  whom  they  have 
made  Christianity  at  once  ludicrous  and  hateful — such  are  the 
fruits  which  Protestantism  has  reaped  in  China.  But  it  is  time 
to  show,  without  pausing  to  offer  comments  upon  a  history 
which  needs  none,  that  there  is  exactly  the  same  difference,  by 
the  confession  of  the  same  reluctant  and  impartial  witnesses,  in 


*  Life  in  China,  p.  510. 

f  2lficelve  Years  in  China,  cli.  viii.,  p.  77 ;  ch.  xxiv.,  p.  267. 

i  Bampton  Lectures,  Lect.  vi.,  p.  214. 

§  China,  ch.  xi.,  p.  181. 

|  Hong-Kong  Daily  Press. 

Tf  Brine,  The  Taeping  Rebellion,  ch.  iii.,  p.  61. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  187 

the  quality  as  in  the  number  of  the  disciples  who  have  been 
won  respectively  by  the  Church  and  by  the  Sects. 

What  the  Catholic  natives  are  we  have  seen,  and  not  even  the 
annals  of  the  primitive  Church  surpass  those  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  China,  Corea;  and  A  imam.  The  Catholics,  of  all 
ranks,  as  Dr.  Williams  angrily  confesses,  "  have  exhibited  the 
greatest  fidelity,  even  at  the  risk  of  death  ;"  while  the  super- 
natural virtues  displayed,  in  every  province  of  the  empire,  by 
men  who  but  yesterday  were  godless  and  sordid  barbarians, 
have  so  kindled  the  admiration  of  their  pagan  countrymen,  as 
to  add  to  the  ranks  of  the  faithful,  in  spite  of  incessant  perse- 
cution, more  than  eight  hundred  thousand  souls  in  forty  years. 

On  the  other  hand,  even  the  most  trusted  of  the  nominal 
Protestant  converts  have  proved  so  irreclaimable,  that  the  Rev. 
Theodore  Hamberg,  one  of  their  teachers,  admits  that,  "on  ac- 
count of  the  perfidious  character  of  some  of  his  Chinese  attend- 
ants, or  catechistS)  he  was  obliged  to  dismiss  several  of  them."* 
"  Some  of  us,"  says  another  Protestant  missionary,  "  have  ex- 
perienced serious  embarrassments  from  having  the  best  teachers 
we  can  procure  stupefied  and  disabled  by  the  influence  of 
opium"t — for  which  Mr.  Medhurst  used  to  allow  his  disciple 
Chin  ''eight  to  ten  dollars  per  month."  "Two  assistants  of  the 
missionary  Mr.  Roberts/'  we  learn  from  Mr.  Hamberg,  in 
1855,  "  fearing  that  Siu-Tsuen,  with  his  superior  talents,  would 
after  baptism  be  employed  by  Mr.  Roberts,  and  that  they  them- 
selves would  lose  their  position,  planned  how  they  mighr  get  rid 
of  him,  and  prevent  his  being  baptized,  and  in  this  they  suc- 
ceeded.'^ Such  were  even  the  "  catechists"  and  "  assistants" 
employed  by  the  Protestant  missionaries,  who,  in  spite  of  this 
accurate  knowledge  of  their  real  character,  continued  to  employ 
them.  Such  was  their  estimate  of  the  value  of  Christian  bap- 
tism, and  such  its  effects  upon  themselves,  that  they  were  only 
solicitous  to  prevent  others  from  sharing  them. 

The  rank  and  file  of  their  converts  were  not  more  worthless, 
— how  could  they  be? — but  here  is  a  specimen  of  them.  Mr. 
Forbes, who  notices  with  admiration  that  "there  are  more  than 
forty  thousand  Catholics"  in  the  apostolic  vicariate  of  Fu-kien, 
adds:  "I  wish  1  could  say  as  much  for  the  success  of  the 
Church  of  England  mission,  but  at  Koo-lung-su,  where  I  was 
for  upwards  of  a  year,  the  only  two  Protestant  converts  that  I 
could  hear  of  were  suspected  of  running  off  with  the  commu- 
nion plate."§ 

*  The  Chinese  Rebel  Chief,  Hung-Siu-Tsuen,  introd.,  p.  6  (1855). 

\  Asiatic  Journal,  New  Series,  vol.  xxxii.,  p.  329. 

JP  48. 

§  Five  Years  in  China,  ch.  xi ,  p.  184. 


188  CHAPTER  II. 

Even  their  scholars,  over  whom  they  had  so  many  opportuni- 
ties of  acquiring  supreme  influence,  and  who  were  glad  to  learn 
English,  though  at  the  cost  of  a  weekly  sermon,  "emulated  the 
irregularities  of  the  converts."  Dr.  Ball  reports,  in  1856,  that 
at  Ningpo,  for  the  facts  were  everywhere  uniform,  "  some 
Chinese  boys  in  the  school  have  been  pawning  their  clothing, 
and  taken  away  some  money.  Investigations  are  being  made 
by  some  of  the  missionary  teachers."  This  gentleman  adds, 
that  their  practice  of  "learning  English  in  the  schools  of  the 
missionaries,"  with  no  other  object  but  "  to  turn  it  afterwards 
to  their  own  advantage  for  trading  purposes,  in  the  Chinese 
character,  seems  to  me  natural."* 

The  contrast  of  which  these  are  examples,  and  the  incorrigi- 
ble immorality  of  the  few  Protestant  converts,  and  of  their 
profligate  "  catechists,"  are  so  perpetually  affirmed  and  illus- 
trated by  writers  of  all  classes,  that  the  advocates  of  Protestant 
missions,  far  from  attempting  to  refute  their  evidence,  found 
upon  it  such  argumentation  as  the  following:  "To  object  to 
flrst  converts,  because  they  are  less  perfect  than  Christians  who 
have  higher  privileges,  discovers  great  ignorance  of  human 
nature  ;"f  a  plea  which  is,  perhaps,  still  more  curious,  —  con- 
sidering that  they  have  been  half  a  century  at  work,  and  that 
the  "  first  converts,"  both  of  the  Apostles  and  of  later  Catholic 
missionaries,  have  been  saints  and  martyrs,  —  than  the  unwel- 
come phenomenon  which  it  attempts  to  explain. 

But  even  the  testimonies  already  cited  do  not  disclose  every 
feature  of  the  contrast  which  we  are  tracing.  We  have  seen 
how  Protestant  writers  speak  of  their  own  missionaries  as  a 
class  ;  sometimes  they  even  name  individuals,  and  compare 
them,  one  by  one,  with  the  Catholic  teachers,  whom  they  hap- 
pen to  have  met,  as  Mr.  Power  met  Fathers  Zea  and  Aguilar, 
and  of  whom  they  speak  as  he  did.  Commander  Elliot  Bing- 
ham  tells  us,  in  1842,  that  his  frigate  was  visited  by  a  French 
Catholic  missionary,  who  had  just  come  out  of  a  Chinese  prison, 
where  he  had  been  "  nearly  starved."  "  He  came  on  board," 
says  this  officer,  "  without  apparently  feeling  the  least  pleasure 
at  his  release.  He  had  failed  in  his  object,  ~but  would  try  it 


Mr.  Fonblanque,  writing  from  the  interior  of  China  in  1861, 
and  addressing  his  cautious  confessions  to  the  Times  newspaper, 
reluctantly  attests,  that  "  the  self-devotion,  the  zeal,  and,  as  a 
very  general  rule,  the  pure  and  simple  lives  led  by  the  French 
missionaries  in  China,  are  not  without  their  effect  upon  the 

*  Rambles  in  Eastern  Asia,  ch.  xxxvi  ,  p.  301  ;  ch.  xxxviii.,  p.  317. 
f  Missionary  Records  of  the  Religious  Tract  Society,  ch.  ii.,  p.  20. 
\  Narrative  of  the  Expedition  to  China,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  101. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  189 

people ;"  and  lie  adds,  that  even  the  pagans  openly  manifested 
reverence  towards  them.* 

Mr.  Scarth  relates,  in  1860,  that  he  visited  "a  village  where  a 
worthy  Catholic  missionary  resided.  He  had  about  two  hun- 
dred converts.  His  house  was  just  like  the  other  cottages  in 
the  village, — all  the  villagers  being  of  a  poor  class.  Poor 
man  !  he  had  just  got  out  of  prison,  yet  had  returned  to  Ids  flock. 
He  seemed  to  be  much  respected,  but  was  too  delicate-looking 
for  his  task.  He  was  about  to  proceed  some  thirty  miles  off  to 
visit  a  sick  man.  His  intelligence  had  at  once  given  him  an 
ascendency  among  the  poor  ignorant  villagers  ;  and  he  seemed 
bent  on  doing  good.  It  is  a  pity  that  all  missionaries  are  not 
equally  self-sacrificing."  And  then  he  apologizes  for  the  very 
different  life  of  his  own  friends  by  adding,  "  but  it  is  hard  to 
call  upon  intelligent  men  to  tear  themselves  from  civilized 
European  habits,  to  plunge  into  poverty  and  obscurity  in  a 
Chinese  village,"f — in  other  words,  it  is  unreasonable  to  ask 
for  apostolic  virtues  in  a  Protestant  missionary. 

The  Singapore  Free  Press,  of  April  13,  1843,  says  of  the 
missionaries  in  Cochin-China,  that  the  heathen  themselves 
were  so  astonished  at  their  quiet  submission  to  the  most  cruel 
tortures,  which  they  could  have  escaped  by  a  word  or  a  sign, 
that  they  used  to  say  to  one  another,  "These  foreigners 
probably  possess  some  charm  to  deaden  pain.";j;  Perhaps  their 
fathers  said  the  same  thing  of  St.  John  when  he  came  out  of 
the  boiling  caldron ;  of  St.  Paul  when  he  was  scourged ;  of  St. 
Peter  when  he  was  crucified. 

Let  us  hear  other  examples,  but  all  of  recent  date.  Mr. 
Forbes  met  a  missionary,  not  a  European,  like  the  priest  whom 
Commander  Bingham  received,  but  a  native  of  Corea.  He 
was  "of  noble  birth,  and  by  profession  a  Roman  Catholic 
priest.  His  father,  grandfather,  and  great-grandfather,  had  all 
died  for  that  religion."  He  was  returning  to  his  own  country, 
the  land  of  martyrs,  "  on  foot,  a  distance  of  at  least  fourteen 
hundred  miles."  He  had  already  tasted  persecution,  for 
"  more  than  once  he  had  witnessed  a  partial  massacre  of  his 
own  flock,  and  had  himself  been  hunted  down  by  dogs."  And 
now  this  descendant  of  a  race  of  martyrs  was  going  calmly  to 
face  all  this  again.  Yet  he  was  one  who  might  have  taken  his 
fill  of  social  pleasures,  if  he  had  been  so  minded ;  for  the 


*  The  Times,  June  17, 1861.    Niphon  and  Pe-cheM,  by  Edward  Barrington 
De  Fonblanque,  p.  216  (1862). 
f  Twelve  Years  in  China^ch.  vi.,  p.  61. 
\  Chinese  Repository,  vol.  xii.,  p.  539. 


190  CHAPTER   IT. 

English  officers  "found  him  a  clever,  agreeable,  well-informed 
man,  with  a  fund  of  anecdotes,  and  a  very  good  manner," — 
and  he  spoke  six  languages.*  Perhaps  he  was  a  friend  of 
that  other  Corean  of  whom  Morrison  said,  "  lie  offers  himself 
up  to  God." 

Mr.  Forbes,  who  is  a  British  officer,  gives  also,  like  Mr.  Sirr, 
Mr.  Power,  and  others,  individual  examples  of  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries. They  are  of  another  type.  He  meets  a  "  Church  of 
England  clergyman,"  who  refused  even  "to  attend  the  military 
hospitals  to  administer  the  consolations  of  religion  to  the  sick," 
though  he  was  paid  for  that  object.  When  the  regimental 
surgeon  rebuked  him,  he  answered,  u  Soldiers  and  sailors  are  so 
very  bad,  it  is  of  no  use;  I  never  like  to  go  near  them."  So 
the  military  authorities  hired  "  an  American  missionary,  who 
undertook  the  cure  of  souls  of  an  English  regiment,  at  a  salary 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  per  annum,  paid  weekly.'" 
He  is  called,  in  his  turn,  to  visit  a  dying  English  soldier,  but 
only  went  "  as  far  as  the  foot  of  the  staircase,"  and  hearing 
that  it  was  a  case  of  delirium  tremens,  "  turned  upon  his  heel, 
and  went  his  way."  But  there  was,  adds  Mr.  Forbes,  a  mis- 
sionary of  another  class  there.  "  Father  Barrentin  was  in  the 
hospital  at  the  time,  and  though  his  stipend  is  only  ninety  dol- 
lars per  annum, — less  than  twenty  pounds, — yet  upon  that  he 
lives,  and  declines  all  offers  of  further  payment."  There  was 
still  mercy  in  store  for  the  dying  Englishman,  "  at  whose  re- 
quest, communicated  to  him  through  the  hospital  attendant, 
the  good  Father  administered  to  him  the  last  offices  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  in  communion  with  which,  I  need 
hardly  say,  the  poor  man  died."f 

The  Rev.  Gustavus  Hines,  an  American  Protestant  minister, 
was  so  much  impressed  by  the  same  class  of  facts  during  his 
stay  in  China,  that  he  was  tempted  to  express  his  astonishment 
that  some  of  the  Episcopalian  chaplains  at  Hong- Kong,  "  after 
spending  Sunday  evening  in  card-playing  and  wine-drinking, 
will  enter  the  sacred  desk,"  not,  as  he  intimates,  with  much 
advantage  to  their  hearers.;): 

Sometimes  their  friends  openly  jest  at  the  failure  which,  in 
missionaries  of  such  a  class,  is  not  surprising.  Thus  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Malan  begs  them  playfully  not  to  "  delude  themselves"  with 
the  expectation,  which  incessant  misadventure  should  have  cor- 
rected, that  "sharp,  intelligent,  skeptical,  and  often  very  learned 
men,"  like  the  Chinese,  "  will,  as  a  matter  of  course,  bow  to 


*  five  Years  in  China,  p.  190. 

f  P.  186. 

\  Plains  of  the  Pacific,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  270. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  191 

a  few  scattered  emissaries  of  a  more  florid  complexion,"*  for 
BO  he  describes  the  two  hundred  Protestant  missionaries  in 
China. 

Mr.  Walter  Gibson,  an  American  Protestant,  expressed,  in 
1856,  the  same  unfavorable  impression,  which  he  too  had 
formed  from  actual  observation,  of  the  same  class  of  agents. 
"  The.  Chinese,  Hindoos,  Malays,  and  other  people  of  the  East," 
he  says,  u  may  become  wiser,  stronger,  and  happier,  when  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Gospel  shall  go  forth  among  them  more  zealous 
and  unencumbered,  and  less  as  mere  stipendiary  agents  of  a 
company."^  And  this  appears  to  be  the  almost  universal  senti- 
ment of  independent  Protestants,  who  have  actually  watched 
their  proceedings  in  China.  "  I  was  born  a  Protestant,"  said 
one  of  the  interpreters  to  the  British  plenipotentiary  in  China  to 
the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Nankin,  "but  I  cannot  refrain  from 
admiring  the  heroism,  the  devotedness,  and  the  superiority  of 
the  Catholic  missionaries  in  China.";]:  Mr.  Wingrove  Cooke 
also  appears  to  sum  up  his  estimate  of  their  unsuccessful  rivals, 
when  he  says,  "Ignorant  declairners  in  bad  Chinese  have  no 
success  in  China;"  and  an  English  journalist  of  high  character 
concludes  from  such  revelations  as  are  found  in  that  gentleman's 
well-known  work,  not  only  that  "  as  a  body  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries appear  to  command  less  respect  than  is  paid  to  their 
Roman  Catholic  rivals,"  but  that  "  they  adopt  the  low  tone  of 
morality  that  is  prevalent  among  those  whom  they  seek  to  con- 
vert, and  thus  bring  humiliation  upon  their  order. "§ 

A  curious  illustration,  and  it  shall  be  the  last,  of  the  feelings 
with  which  the  English  residents  in  China  regard  the  mortifying 
contrast  which  they  so  candidly  attest,  is  contained  in  a  fact 
which  is  sufficiently  remarkable  to  deserve  notice.  There  are  at 
this  moment  eight  Chinese  children  in  England, — the  writer 
has  seen  and  conversed  with  four  of  them, — the  offspring  of 
four  English  Protestant  merchants  and  of  as  many  -pagan 
Chinese  women.  Of  these  children,  six  are  in  convents  in 
England,  and  the  other  two  under  the  guardianship  of  Catholics ; 
and  their  fathers  have  desired  that  they  may  be  brought  up  in 
the  Catholic  faith,  towards  which  they  already  display  earnest 
and  intelligent  attachment,  solely  in  consequence  of  the  respect 
which  they  have  conceived  for  Catholic  missionaries,  and  the 
disgust  which  they  entertain  for  those  of  another  class. 

Here  we  may  fitly  close  the  evidence,  exclusively  Protestant, 
as  the  reader  will  observe,  to  this  particular  feature  of  the 

*  Who  is  God  in  China,  Shin  or  Shanh-Te?  by  the  Rev.  S.  C.  Malan,  p.  176. 

\  The  East  Indian  ArcMpelago,  p.  134. 

|  Quoted  in  Annals,  vol.  v.,  p.  828. 

|  Manchester  Guardian,  quoted  in  the  Times,  September  25,  1858. 


192  CHAPTER   II. 

contrast  which  we  shall  hereafter  trace  in  every  region  of  the 
earth.  Never  since  Christianity  was  first  promulgated  were 
professors  of  religion  so  described,  or  so  appreciated,  by  their 
own  friends  and  associates,  except  only  the  same  class  of 
missionaries  in  all  the  other  countries  of  the  world  which  we 
have  still  to  visit. 


HOW   THE   MISSIONARIES    RESENT   THEIR   FAILURE. 

But  if  the  Protestant  missionaries  have  failed  to  attract  either 
the  respect  of  the  pagan  or  the  sympathy  of  their  co-religionists ; 
if  they  have  endured  the  mortification  of  seeing  the  first 
embrace  in  tens  of  thousands  the  Catholic  faith,  and  of  hearing 
the  last  avow  their  admiration  of  those  who  preached  it  to 
them  ;  they  have  at  least  attempted,  after  their  own  manner,  to 
avenge  their  defeat.  If  they  could  not  make  converts  them- 
selves, they  could  defame  the  disciples  of  others;  if  they  dared 
not  imitate  the  heroism  of  their  rivals,  they  could  sneer  at  it, 
like  Dr.  Smith  and  his  clergy,  and  attribute  it  to  unworthy 
motives.  It  was  in  this  way,  therefore,  that  they  revenged 
themselves. 

We  have  seen  already  that  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  whose  own  labors 
were  more  profitable  to  himself  than  to  the  Chinese,  could 
venture  to  say  that  "the  Catholic  missionaries  converted 
thousands  without  touching  the  heart."  Dr.  Wells  Williams, 
one  of  his  successors,  is  still  more  emphatic,  and  assures  his 
readers,  that  the  Catholic  converts,  who  shed  their  blood  in 
every  province  of  the  empire  for  the  name  of  Jesus,  "  can 
hardly  be  considered  as  much  better  than  baptized  pagans."* 
This,  he  adds,  must  be  our  judgment  of  them,  "until  the 
confessional  be  abolished,  and  the  worship  of  the  Virgin."  The 
Rev.  William  Gillespie,  another  Protestant  missionary,  explains 
to  his  own  satisfaction  the  conversion  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Chinese,  at  the  peril  of  goods,  liberty,  and  life,  by  observing 
that  "in  becoming  Papists  they  give  up  nothing  f^ — a  remark 
which  he  may  perhaps  have  borrowed  from  a  Dutch  Protestant, 
who  suggested  that  the  constancy  of  the  Japanese  martyrs 
under  all  their  torments  "  was  to  be  attributed  to  the  firmness 
of  the  national  character  !"$  Mr.  Montgomery  Martin,  with 
almost  as  little  respect  for  the  intelligence  of  his  readers,  informs 
us,  that  if  the  Protestant  missionaries  have  failed,  it  is  only 
because  "  they  will  not  adopt  secret  and  stealthy  means  to 

*  The  Middle  Kingdom,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  324. 
The  Land  of  Smim,  ch.  iv.,  p.  132. 
Montauus,  ap.  Charlevoix,  Histoire  du  Japon,  tome  v.,  liv.  xiii.,  p.  367. 


MISSIONS  IN   CHINA.  193 

promote  Christianity."*  Mr.  Peter  Auber  agrees  with  him, 
and  deplores  that  "  the  means  which  the  Catholic  missionaries 
took  to  propagate  their  faith  were  not  open  and  direct,  but 
covert  and  disguised. "f  If  he  had  visited  Corea  himself,  or 
Cochin-China,  or  even  Nankin,  he  would  perhaps  have  called 
upon  the  mandarins  to  announce  his  arrival.  Mr.  Samuel 
Kidd,  afterwards  Professor  of  Chinese  at  the  London  University, 
informs  the  world,  that  the  Catholic  success  in  China  "  was 
gained  by  pandering  to  human  passions  and  lusts  !'^  This 
gentleman  has  since  passed  to  the  other  world.  The  Rev. 
Joseph  Edkins,  another  missionary  in  China,  expresses  the 
"  painful  reflections"  with  which,  at  the  college  described  by 
Mr.  Oliphant,  Mr.  D'Ewes,  and  others,  he  saw  some  of  the 
pupils,  who  were  taught  sculpture,  "  forming  images  of  Joseph 
and  Mary,  and  other  Scripture  personages."  If  they  had 
been  fashioning  a  Yenus  or  a  Bacchus,  he  would  have  ap- 
plauded their  praiseworthy  skill,  but  he  was  indignant  that 
they  should  be  like  "  the  idol-makers  in  the  neighboring 
towns,  moulding  Buddhas,  and  gods  of  war  and  riches,  des- 
tined to  be  honored  in  much  the  same  manner. "§  Mr.  Edkins 
also  laments,  no  doubt  with  sincerity,  "  the  worldly  policy  of 
the  Jesuits,"  that  is  of  Ricci,  and  Schaal,  and  Yerbiest !  Even 
English  Protestants  who  were  never  seen  in  China,  repeat  the 
same  language.  "The  conversions  were  easy"  we  are  gravely 
told,  in  a  paper  published  by  a  well-known  English  society, 
because  the  converts  only  "  accepted  the  Romish  rosary  for 
that  which  the  Buddhists  used."  And  this  account  of  an 
army  of  martyrs  and  confessors  was  solemnly  read  before  the 
u  Royal  Geographical  Society  of  England  !"||  Lastly,  for  we 
cannot  quote  them  all,  another  English  association,  alluding 
to  the  baptism  of  outcast  and  dying  children,  flung  into  what 
Barrow  truly  calls  "  the  horrible  pit  of  destruction  at  which 
Roman  Catholic  missionaries  attend  by  turns  as  a  part  of  the 
duties  of  their  ofHce,"T  denounces  this  charitable  and  perilous 
administration  of  the  sacrament,  without  which  "  a  man  can- 
not enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God,"**  as  "  an  infamous  and 
clumsy  fraud  upon  the  poor  Chinese."tt 

Surely  only  this  was  wanting  to  add  a  still  more  inexpiable 
discredit  to  the  proceedings  of  men  who  could  attempt  thus  to 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  491. 

f  China,  by  Peter  Auber,  ch.  ii.,  p.  47. 
\  China,  section  vii.,  p.  393. 
"  The  Religious  Condition  of  the  Chinese. 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  vol.  xix.,  p.  129. 
\   Travels  in  China,  ch.  iv.,  p.  168. 
**  John  iii.,  5. 

ft  Ecangelical  Christendom,  vol.  i.,  p.  184. 
14 


194:  CHAPTER   II. 

cloak  their  own  mortification,  by  reviling  apostles  whom  they 
had  not  courage  to  imitate,  and  scoffing  at  works  which  they 
had  not  faith  to  attempt. 


THE   MULTIPLICATION    OF   SECTS. 

That  there  are  individuals  among  the  Protestant  missionaries 
in  China  who  would  repudiate  the  language  which  has  now 
/  been  quoted,  and  refuse  to  repeat  it,  we  may  easily  believe. 
They  may  be  as  unsuccessful  as  an  Edkins  or  a  Gillespie  in 
converting  the  heathen,  but  they  have  too  much  integrity,  too 
much  self-respect,  to  employ  the  phraseology  of  such  writers. 
But  these  few,  men  of  honor  and  of  kindly  dispositions,  are 
overwhelmed  by  the  multitude  of  mercenaries,  of  various  sects, 
who  are  now  assembled  in  the  seaports  of  China.  Thirteen 
years  ago  the  American  missionaries  alone  already  amounted 
to  one  hundred  and  sixteen,  "  not  including  females."  How 
many  there  are  of  other  classes  we  may  partly  infer  from  the 
following  list  of  societies,  each  of  which  had  its  agents  and 
representatives  in  China  more  than  twenty  years  ago. 

1.  The  London  Missionary  Society. 

2.  The  Church  Missionary  Society. 

3.  The  General  Baptist  Society. 

4.  The  Presbyterian  Free  Church  Society. 

5.  The  Methodist  Society. 

6.  The  Chinese  Evangelization  Society. 
T.  The  Rhenish  Evangelization  Society. 

8.  The  German  Evangelization  Society. 

9.  The  Swedish  Evangelization  Society. 

10.  The  Berlin  Evangelization  Society. 

11.  The  American  Board  of  Foreign  Missions. 

12.  The  American  Baptist  Missions. 

13.  The  American  Presbyterian  Missions. 

14.  The  American  Episcopal  Missions. 

15.  The  American  Methodist  Missions. 

16.  The  American  Southern  Baptist  Missions. 

17.  The  American  Seventh  Day  Baptist  Missions.* 
Such  is  Protestantism,  prolific  at  least  in  sects,  if  in  nothing 

else.  And  the  list  just  cited  has  probably  received  ample  addi- 
tions since  that  date.  The  effect  of  this  colhivies  of  sects  has 
been  just  what  we  might  have  anticipated.  In  China,  as  in  every 
other  pagan  land  visited  by  Protestant  missionaries,  it  has  simply 
confirmed  the  heathen  in  their  own  errors,  and  in  a  mingled 

*  Dr.  Brown's  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  iii.,  p.  370. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  195 

hatred  and  contempt  for  Christianity.     They  are  Protestant 
witnesses  who  record  this  fact. 

"  It  is  to  be  regretted,"  said  Lord  Elgin  in  1858,  in  a  dispatch 
to  Lord  Clarendon,  "  that  the  existence  of  profound  divisions 
among  ourselves  should  be  one  of  the  first  truths  which  we 
Christians  reveal  to  the  heathen  whom  we  desire  to  convert  ;" 
and  the  statement  is  the  more  remarkable  because  it  appears  to 
have  been  suggested  by  "  an  address  presented  to  him  by  the 
missionaries  at  Shang-liae."* 

"  There  is  no  greater  barrier,"  says  Mr.  Colledge,  a  British 
official  in  China,  "  to  the  spread  of  the  Gospel  of  our  Saviour 
among  the  heathen,  than  the  division  and  splitting  which  have 
taken  place  among  the  various  orders  of  Christians  themselves. 
Let  us  ask  any  intelligent  Chinese  what  he  thinks  of  this,  and 
he  will  tell  us,  that  these  persons  cannot  be  influenced  by  the 
same  great  principle  ;  but  that  Europe  and  America  must 
have  as  many  Christs  as  China  has  gods""\ 

"  There  is  a  great  and  fatal  error  to  be  avoided,"  says  another 
English  writer,  who  had  examined  the  same  facts,  "  and  that 
is,  the  rivalry  of  religious  sects  among  each  other,  and  the 
attempt  to  gain  followers  at  the  expense  of  each  other's 
tenets.";):  We  shall  see  hereafter  the  same  rivalry  of  Protes- 
tant sects  in  every  region  of  the  earth,  and  everywhere  with 
the  same  result — :the  angry  scorn  of  the  pagans  for  a  religion 
which  cannot  even  unite  its  own  followers  in  one  body. 

On  the  other  hand,  at  the  very  moment  that  lay  writers 
were  deploring  the  ceaseless  conflicts  of  Protestants,  and  their 
effects  upon  the  Chinese,  a  native  official  was  reporting  to  the 
late  emperor,  Kien-fung,  as  one  of  the  marked  features  of  u  the 
doctrine  of  the  Lord  of  Heaven," — i.  0.,  the  Catholic  religion, 
—that  "  there  is  great  unanimity  of  opinion  amongst  the  pro- 
fessors of  the  doctrine."§  Ten  years  later,  one  of  the  most 
blasphemous  of  the  Tae-ping  leaders,  who  had  long  been 
nominally  a  Protestant,  and  "  for  years  a  native  catechist," 
employed  by  the  missionaries,  gave  to  the  admonitions  of  one 
of  them  this  crushing  reply  :  "  He  was  desirous  of  being 
friendly  with  us ;  but  there  was  such  a  variety  of  sentiment 
among  us  /  and  the  simple  fact,  our  being  what  we  are.  deter- 
mined him  to  follow  his  own  course."! 


*  Scarth,  cli.  xxiv.,  p.  267. 

f  Suggestions  with  regard  to  employing  Medical  Practitioners  as  Missionaries 
to  China,  p.  33. 

$  Bernard's  Services  of  the  Nemesis. 

§  Brine,  The  Taeping  Rebellion,  ch.  iv.,  p.  95. 

j  Ibid.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  287. 


196  CHAPTER  II. 


MEDICAL   MISSIONARIES. 

One  advantage,  however,  has  resulted  to  the  Chinese,  even 
from  the  multiplicity  of  Protestant  sects  ;  for  as  each  is  un- 
ceasingly striving  to  surpars  every  other,  and  possesses  almost 
unlimited  pecuniary  resources  for  the  furtherance  of  its  designs, 
hospitals  conducted  by  European  methods  have  been  established 
in  several  of  the  seaports.  The  Americans  have  even  formed 
a  special  class  of  missionaries,  professors  of  medicine,  having 
the  title  of  "reverend,"  and  aiming  to  acquire  influence  over 
the  souls  of  the  Chinese  through  their  bodies.  The  plan  is  an 
excellent  one,  though  it  has  completely  failed  as  a  missionary 
project.  Mr.  Malcolm  frankly  confesses  that  "  a  sense  of failure 
in  regard  to  direct  evangelical  labors  renders  popular  the 
sending  out  of  physicians:"  some  of  whom,  we  learn  from  a 
competent  authority,  "  do  incalculable  mischief  by  their  imper- 
fect knowledge  of  the  healing  art."*  The  hospital  reports  of 
the  Medical  Missionary  Society  in  China  show  that  thousands 
of  the  natives  have  profited  by  the  medical  skill  of  the  English 
and  Americans,  and  are  loud  in  praises  of  it ;  yet  they  cannot 
touch  their  conscience !  In  1861,  Mr.  Lockhart,  himself  a 
"  medical  missionary,"  reports  that  he  "  has  attended  to  more 
than  two  hundred  thousand  individual  patients,"  and  many  of 
his  companions  were  engaged  in  the  same  work ;  yet  the  whole 
mass  which  they  have  held,  as  it  were,  in  their  grasp,  slips 
away  from  them,  admiring  their  drugs  and  their  surgery,  but 
utterly  indifferent  to  their  religion. 

In  1845,  Dr.  Hobson,  who  had  in  two  years  seven  thousand 
two  hundred  and  twenty-one  patients  in  a  single  city,  but 
deplores  that  they  "have  not  given  satisfactory  evidence  that 
they  feel  the  moral  truths  inculcated,"  attributes  the  failure,  for 
which  it  was  necessary  to  account,  not  to  the  want  of  vocation 
on  the  part  of  their  English  and  American  teachers,  but  to 
"their  own  innate  apathy  and  indifference  to  religion  gener- 
ally."! Yet  a  gentleman  bearing  the  singular  title  of  "  Arch- 
deacon of  Ningpo"  says,  "you  seldom  enter  a  Buddhist  temple 
without  seeing  some  anxious  faces  watching  till  one  of  the 
1  sticks  of  fate'  falls  out  of  the  shaker.  This  is  taken  to  the 
attendant  priest  for  his  interpretation.''^  "  Where  in  Protestant 

*  Medical  Missionary  Society  in  China,,  p.  6.  See  also  The  Campaign  in 
China,  by  Captain  Granville  Locke. 

f  The  Medical  Missionary  in  China,  by  Win.  Lockhart,  F.R.C.S.,  F.R.G.S., 
ch.  ix.,p.  207;  ch.  x.,  p.  '281. 

\  Pictures  of  the  Chinese,  by  the  Rev.  R.  H.  Cobbold,  M. A.,  late  Archdeacon 
of  Ningpo,  p.  14. 


MISSIONS   IN  CHINA.  197 

countries,"  asks  Captain  Blakiston,  "  do  we  find  people  going 
to  such  an  expense  as  is  entailed  by  the  number  of  candles,  in- 
cense, sticks,  and  paper  consumed  every  evening?.  .  .  I  think 
many  of  us  have  an  example  of  earnestness  set  us  by  the 
heathen  Chinese."*  Such  men  have  surely  as  much  religion 
as  the  barbarous  tribes  of  England  or  Germany,  whom  a  St. 
Augustine  or  a  St.  Boniface  won  to  Christianity ;  and  we  have 
seen  that,  under  the  guidance  of  missionaries  of  another  order, 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  Chinese  have  cheerfully  abandoned 
all,  and  many  of  them  life  itself,  to  embrace  a  far  more  exact- 
ing religion  than  that  which  the  opulent  agents  of  Protestant- 
ism offered  them  in  vain. 


THE   MISSIONARIES   IGNORANT   OF  THE   LANGUAGE. 

Another  fact,  in  illustration  of  the  failures  of  Protestantism  in 
China,  claims  a  brief  notice,  before  we  pass  to  new  scenes.  The 
number  of  the  missionaries  is  legion,  but  not  one-tenth  of  them 
can  even  speak  the  language,  however  imperfectly.  Timkowski, 
who  was  sent  to  Pekin  by  the  Russian  government  a  few  years 
before  Morrison  went  to  Canton,  confesses,  that  "  the  Russian 
students  at  Pekin  never  made  themselves  thoroughly  acquaint- 
ed with  the  real  meaning  of  Chinese  words."f  The  Russians, 
in  spite  of  their  political  advantages,  have  never  so  much  as 
attempted  to  convert  the  Chinese,  and  their  superior  at  Pekin 
confessed  to  Father  Ripa,  "  that  he  only  baptized  Russians  ;J" 
so  that  Gutzlaif  remarks,  perhaps  with  unconscious  irony,  that 
u  the  government  has  never  upbraided  them  on  account  of  their 
proselyting  zeal."  And  the  Protestants,  resembling  these  sterile 
sectaries  in  their  exile  from  unity,  resemble  them  also,  not  in- 
deed in  their  lethargy,  but  in  their  ignorance  of  the  Chinese 
dialects. 

The  Rev.  David  Abeel  observes,  that  "  those  missionaries  who 
have  not  been  toiling  for  years  at  the  language  are  not  qualified'1 
for  their  office.  Hence  they  commonly  pay  unbaptized  Chinese 
to  do  their  work ;  and  Dr.-  Smith  mentions  one  who  was  em- 
ployed "  to  read  a  tract,  after  previous  preparation  and  instruc- 
tion by  a  missionary  at  his  own  house,"  but  who,  in  spite  of 
this  tuition,  "  hazarded  comments  of  his  own,  which  were  of  a 
rather  equivocal  tendency. "§  If  Protestant  missionaries  are 

*  Five  Months  on  the  Yang-Tze,  cli.  xviii.,  p.  318. 
f  Timkowski's  Travels,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  27. 
|  Ripa's  Residence  at  the  Court  of  Pekin,  ch.  xvi. 
§  Visit  to  the  Consular  Cities  of  China,  p.  416. 


198  CHAPTER   II. 

content  to  employ  such  doubtful  auxiliaries,  a  usage  common 
to  them  in  all  heathen  countries,  the  singular  practice  is  partly 
explained  by  the  fact,  noticed  by  Dr.  Berncastle,  that  "  plenty 
of  men  may  be  obtained  who,  for  about  tivepence  a  day,  would 
read  and  speak  of  the  Gospel,  just  as  they  would  read  or  speak 
of  the  writings  of  Confucius."*  Such  assistant  missionaries, 
however,  appear  to  earn  their  modest  wages  by  compromising 
with  "  equivocal  comments"  the  very  religion  which  they  are 
paid  to  teach,  though  they  neither  believe  it  themselves,  nor 
wish  to  make  others  believe  it. 

It  was  the  actual  experience  of  these  facts  which  made  Mr. 
Malcolm  exclaim,  "It  is  a  great  mercy  that  China  should  be 
shut  at  present.  Were  it  otherwise,  Protestants  are  without 
persons  to  send ;  while  Popish  priests  abound  in  the  East,  and 
would  instantly  enter  in  great  numbers,  making  the  field  worse 
for  us,  if  possible,  than  now."  Yet  half  a  century  might  surely 
have  sufficed  to  overcome  the  difficulties  of  the  study,  if  en- 
countered in  a  spirit  of  religious  zeal  and  charity.  They  are  no 
doubt  great,  as  Colonel  Cunynhaine  observes,  "  except  to  a  man 
with  indomitable  spirit  and  determination.'^  Yet  the  Catholic 
missionaries  are  able  to  hear  confessions  in  Chinese  at  the  end 
of  one  year,  or  at  the  most  two.  "  The  Holy  Ghost,"  says  one 
of  their  number,  "  is  the  great  Teacher  of  languages."  Even 
Mr.  Edkins,  speaking  of  the  "  French  Sisters  of  Mercy"  at 
Ningpo,  expresses  his  surprise  that  they  "  did  not  employ  native 
schoolmasters  or  schoolmistresses"  in  their  schools,  as  the  Prot- 
estants do,  but  taught  them  themselves,  and  "proved  their 
competence"  by  reading  Chinese  books  in  his  presence.;): 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Protestant  missionaries  remain  for  the 
most  part  so  ignorant  of  the  language,  that,  although  there 
were  about  two  hundred  of  them  in  China,  most  of  whom  are 
ready  to  accept  any  lucrative  employment  whatever,  it  was 
found  impossible  even  to  obtain  an  interpreter  for  the  public 
service ;  while  Baron  Gros  and  General  Montaubau  had  only 
to  apply  to  the  superior  of  the  French  missions,  and  their 
demand  was  immediately  satisfied. §  "The  want  was  very 
much  felt,"  we  are  told,  by  the  officers  of  the  British  expedition, 
who  "  repeatedly  applied  for  some  one  to  be  sent  up  in  that 


*  A  Voyage  to  China,  by  Dr.  Berncastle,  vol.  ii.,  p.  281. 

f  Recollections  of  Service  in  China,  by  Colonel  Arthur  Cunynhame,  ch.  xv., 
p.  208.  "  In  China  some  eighteen  provincial  dialects  prevail,  almost  all  deviating 
so  much  from  others  that  the  speakers  are  not  mutually  intelligible ;  and  besides 
these  there  are  other  distinct  forms  of  speech  in  the  mountains  of  the  same  em- 
pire." Sir  Charles  Lyell,  The  Antiquity  of  Man,  ch.  xxiii.,  p.  461  (1868). 

\  The  Religious  Condition  of  the  Chinese,  ch.  xii.,  p.  238. 

§  Un  Voyage  d  Pekin,  par  Georges  de  Keroulee,  ch.  iv.,  p.  55. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  199 

capacity."*  In  1851,  Lord  Jocelyn  suggested,  no  doubt  with 
'some  reluctance,  that  the  "members  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
institution  at  Macao  would  easily  be  induced  to  furnish,  at  all 
times,  a  certain  number  of  interpreters  for  the  use  of  govern- 
ment.'^ And  this,  it  appears,  would  be  nothing  new.  "  It 
was  from  Father  Ripa's  foundation  that  Lord  Macartney  ob- 
tained two  interpreters  for  his  embassy.";}:  Yet  Dr.  Smith  is 
supposed  to  have  founded  a  college  to  supply  this  very  defect, 
of  which  Mr.  "Wingrove  Cooke  asks,  in  1858,  "Where  are  the 
interpreters  who  were  to  be  supplied  by  the  bishop's  college, 
an  institution  that  has,  I  believe,  for  some  years  received  two 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  annually  for  this  purpose  ?  It  has 
never  yet  turned  out  one  Chinese  scholar  !"§ 

And  as  late  as  1854,  the  Abbe  Hue,  who  had  spoken  the 
Chinese  language  for  years,  found  that  one  of  their  latest  lit- 
erary productions,  of  a  very  ambitious  kind,  was  such  a  hopeless 
"jargon,"  that  he  could  only  say  of  it,  "I  am  convinced  that 
in  the  whole  empire  there  is  not  one  Chinese  capable  of  under- 
standing a  single  page  of  this  book."|| 

THE  TREATY  OF  1860  AND  THE  TAE-PING  REBELS. 

"We  have  now  almost  completed,  perhaps  with  excessive  de- 
tail, our  review  of  Protestant  missions  in  China.  One  point 
only  remains  to  be  noticed,  and  then  we  may  proceed  to  trace 
the  same  history  in  other  lands. 

Great  events  have  occurred  in  China  since  Sanz  was  scourged 
to  death,  and  Borie  calmly  encouraged  his  unskilful  executioners 
to  strike  more  firmly  at  his  head.  A  new  era  has  been  inaugu- 
rated, by  the  arms  of  England  and  France,  in  this  distant  land. 
The  cross  has  been  reared  again  on  the  summit  of  the  Catholic 
cathedral  of  Pekin,  "and  once  more  the  TeDeumw&Q  chanted 
within  its  long-neglected  walls,  in  grateful  homage  to  the 
Almighty  Maker. "^f  The  fifth  article  in  the  French  treaty  of 
1860  stipulates  for  "the  restitution  of  all  lands  and  buildings 
which  formerly  belonged  to  the  Catholic  Church  throughout  the 

*  Services  of  the  Nemesis,  ch.  xix.,  p.  194. 

f  Six  Months  in  China,  ch.  vi.,  p.  145. 

j  A  well-known  British  officer  complains  in  1860,  that  "  the  old  Jesuit  map  of 
China  is  still  our  only  guide,"  and  adds  that  it  "has  just  been  reproduced  for 
the  use  of  our  naval  and  military  authorities  in  China,  by  the  topographical 
department  of  the  War  Office."  The  Past  and  Future  of  British  Relations  in 
China,  by  Captain  Sherard  Osborne,  C.B.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  128  (1860). 

§  C/dna,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  359. 

I  L' Empire  Cliinois,  tome  ii.,  ch.  x.,  p.  432. 

1  Narrative  of  the  North  China  Campaign  of  1860,  by  Robert  Swinhoe,  Staff 
Interpreter,  &c.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  361  (1861). 


200  CHAPTER   II. 

whole  empire  of  China."*  The  age  of  persecution  is  over.  As 
far  as  China  proper  is  concerned,  its  last  page  has  been  written, 
its  last  victim  buried,  or  cast  into  the  sea,  or  consumed  in  the 
flames.  The  same  thing  will  perhaps  soon  be  true  of  Corea,  as 
well  as  of  Tong-King  and  the  whole  kingdom  of  Annam. 
"  Persecution  is  no  longer  to  be  feared,"  cries  a  Protestant  mis- 
sionary, and  in  this  unwonted  security  he  discerns  "  a  peculiar 
encouragement"-)-  for  himself  and  his  companions. 

Already  he  begins  to  speculate  on  a  more  tranquil  and  pros- 
perous future ;  and  this  expectation  is  founded,  not  simply  on 
the  cessation  of  persecution,  but  on  the  growth  of  a  new  power 
in  China,  with  which  Protestantism  made  haste  to  ally  itself; 
and  by  whose  aid  it  hoped  at  length  to  snatch  the  success 
which  had  been  hitherto  denied.  It  is  upon  this  alliance  with 
the  Tae-ping  rebels  that  we  are  about  to  make  some  final  re- 
marks, because  it  forms  perhaps  the  most  instructive  and 
characteristic  feature  in  the  history  of  Protestantism  in  China. 

That  Protestant  missionaries  were  the  original  abettors  of  the 
existing  rebellion  in  China,  and  that  it  owed  its  <^£m'-religious 
character  to  their  teaching,  is  now  admitted  even  by  themselves. 
"There  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt,"  says  the  Eev.  J.  Edkins, 
as  if  it  were  a  subject  for  congratulation,  "  that  this  insurrec- 
tion began  in  strong  religious  impressions  derived  from  reading 
the  Scriptures  and  tracts  published  by  Protestant  missionaries."^: 
And  this  is  confirmed  by  lay  writers.  "  We  have  no  doubt," 
says  Mr.  Macfarlane,  in  his  history  of  these  events,  "  that 
Gutzlaff  contributed  to  the  movement."^  The  chief  "  was  long 
under  the  tuition  of  Mr.  Roberts;"  and  Kang-Wang,  the  second 
in  command,  "  spent  several  months  in  Shang-hae,  and  wrote 
out  a  commentary  on  the  entire  New  Testament  from  the  in- 
structions of  the  late  Dr.  Medhurst."|  The  editor  of  the  North 
China  Herald,  who  detected  that  the  chief  of  the  insurrection 
was  "  a  cunning  impostor,"  observes  the  significant  fact,  that 
uhe  applied  to  himself  the  terms  employed  in  Gutzlafs  version 
of  the  New  Testament  for  the  '  Comforter,'  and  that  used  ly 
Morrison  to  designate  the  Holy  Ghost.  In  all  his  proclama- 
tions posted  on  the  walls,  he  appears  with  these  titles,  'the 
Comforter,  the  Holy  Divine  Breath.'  "T 

It  is  certain,  moreover,  that  however  anxious  some  of  them 
have  lately  become  to  disavow  all  connection  with  it,  the 

*  De  Ke"roulee,  ch.  x.,  p.  196. 

f  Gillespie,  The  Land  of  Sinim,  ch.  v.,  p.  140. 

i  Ch.  xv.,  p.  269. 

|  The  Chinese  Revolution,  by  Charles  Macfarlane,  book  ii.,  p.  82. 

|  The  Times,  October  8, 1860. 

^[  Impressions  of  China,  by  Captain  Fishbourne,  ch.  vi.,  p.  270. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  201 

formidable  organization  which  has  proved  so  prolific  of  blas- 
phemy and  crime  was  not  only  created,  but  hailed  with  exul- 
tation by  the  Protestant  missionaries.  "  It  is  a  religious  move- 
ment" says  a  writer  of  that  class,  "essentially  Protestant 
Christian  in  its  origin,  development,  and  tendency."*  "If  it 
succeeds,''  Mr.  Gillespie  exclaims  with  delight,  "  China  will  be 
thrown  open  to  the  efforts  of  Protestant  missionaries/'  "  The 
movement  is  essentially  Protestant  in  its  principles,"  was  the 
triumphant  announcement  of  the  commander  of  the  Hermes, 
"that  is,  holding  the  Bible  alone  without  tradition."-)-  And 
they  all  used  this  language,  although  not  wholly  ignorant,  even 
at  that  period,  of  the  true  nature  of  this  horrible  sect.  "  Behold 
what  God  hath  wrought  !"J  said  the  Rev.  Mr.  Roberts,  the 
spiritual  instructor  of  the  rebel  chief;  though  he  also  was  at 
least  so  far  cognizant  of  the  real  character  of  the  insurrection 
as  to  be  able  to  report,  though  without  any  misgiving  on  that 
account,  that  some  of  these  ferocious  neophytes  "  baptized 
themselves."  Two  Anglican  bishops  in  succession,  Hobson 
and  Smith,  gave  their  countenance  to  the  movement.  The 
former  wrote,  in  1853,  to  the  "Archbishop  of  Canterbury:" 
"There  is  a  strong  guarantee  for  the  Christian  sincerity  of  the 
leaders  among  the  rebels  ;"§  and  added,  with  evident  satisfac- 
tion, "  The  rebel  chiefs  profess  to  believe  in  Protestant  Chris- 
tianity." The  latter,  when  the  missionary  Ham  berg  published 
the  blasphemous  "visions"  of  Hung-Siu-Tsuen,  attached  "a 
high  degree  of  probability  to  them!"|| 

It  is  true  that  there  was  one  motive  for  suspicion,  but  it  only 
confirmed  these  Anglican  prelates  in  their  good  opinion  of  the 
rebels.  Dr.  Hobson  told  his  correspondent  in  England  that  "  it 
is  strange  that  these  rebels  do  not  seem  to  have  any  intercourse 
with  the  Romanists" — but  this  was  a  note  in  their  favor.  Mr. 
Hamberg,  their  biographer,  knew  also,  that  the  wretched 
versions  of  the  Scriptures  which  they  had  received  from  Gutzlaff 
and  others  were  so  inaccurate  that,  as  he  confesses,  they  "  made 
many  mistakes  as  to  the  meaning,"  and  that  Siu-Tsuen  inter- 
preted various  passages  to  refer  to  himself,  and  enforced  the 
interpretation  upon  his  followers.  Mr.  Hamberg  knew,  more- 
over, that  in  administering  a-  sort  of  baptism,  which  was  a  mere 
symbol  of  the  rebellion,  they  used  "  two  burning  lamps  and 
three  cups  of  tea ;"  and  that,  instead  of  the  sacramental  words, 
they  said  in  these  orgies,  "  Purification  from  all  former  sins, 

*  Calcutta  Renew,  vol.  xxii.,  p.  102. 

f  Impressions  of  China,  ch.  v.,  p.  180. 

i  Missionary  Gleaner,  February,  1853,  p.  69. 

§  Macfarlane's  Chinese  Revolution,  pp.  118, 122. 

|]  The  Chinese  Rebel  Chief,  introd.,  p.  6. 


202  CHAPTER   II. 

putting  off  the  old,  and  regeneration."  He  knew  this,  and 
much  more ;  and  yet  desired,  like  Hobson,  and  Roberts,  and 
Gillespie,  and  the  rest,  that  Protestantism  should  make  alliance 
with  them  for  the  chance  of  ulterior  gains.  At  length,  after 
"  urging  these  ruffians  to  go  forth  and  kill,"  as  Mr.  Wingrove 
Cooke  observes,  the  indignant  reproaches  of  their  own  country- 
men forced  the  missionaries  to  break  their  compact  with  a  rebel- 
lion which  their  own  teachings  had  originated,  and  to  confess 
its  intolerable  wickedness.  "  I  am  ashamed,"  said  Mr.  Lay, 
who  had  witnessed  these  proceedings,  "that  any  who  bear, the 
name  of  Christians  should  be  the  abettors  of  evil  men  and  evil 
things,  especially  in  a  heathen  country."  But  such  protests 
were  for  a  long  period  ineffectual.  "The  missionaries  still 
hang  their  hopes  upon  this  rebel  cause,"  says  Mr.  Cooke,  even 
in  1858.  And  two  years  later,  Mr.  Edkins  was  once  more 
arguing  in  defence  of  these  savage  allies,  and  protesting  against 
what  he  called  uan  indiscriminate  condemnation"  of  them 
"  for  mistaking  the  nature  of  Christianity  in  some  points !" 
though  Mr.  Russell,  also  a  Protestant  missionary,  confesses  that 
"  their  notions  are  perfectly  blasphemous,  terribly  repulsive  to 
the  mind  and  heart  of  a  Christian."*  And  now  let  us  see 
what  was  the  nature  of  the  Christianity  which  Protestant 
teaching  had  created,  and  with  which  Protestant  missionaries 
wished  to  make  a  treaty  of  alliance. 

"  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose,"  says  Mr.  Oxenford,  "  that 
the  insurgents  are  otherwise  than  orthodox  Confucians,  "f  But 
even  this  was  a  character  which  they  were  far  from  deserving. 
"Time  was,"  said  the  leading  journal  of  Great  Britain,  on  the 
3d  of  January,  1859,  "when  the  English  sympathies  were 
directed  by  our  missionaries  into  something  like  favor  for  these 
ruffians.  They  lived,  indeed,  by  rapine  and  plunder,  and  died 
like  locusts  when  there  was  no  more  left  to  destroy;  they 
quenched  indiscriminately  all  human  life,  'even,'  as  they 
boasted,  *  to  the  children  at  the  breast,'  and  they  made  it  suffi- 
ciently manifest  that  their  only  object  was  plunder.  But  they 
had  established  a  hideous  and  revolting  burlesque  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  missionaries  would  fondly  hope  that  their  inten- 
tion was  to  establish  a  real  Christianity,  and  that  when  the 
leaders  assumed  the  names  of  the  Three  Persons  of  the  Trinity, 
it  was  only  an  ignorance  they  would  be  glad  to  correct.  This 
hope  is  now  extinct  in  all  sane  minds.  Eight  years  have  gone 
by,  and  no  Christian  missionary  has  been  invited  or  even  tol- 
erated among  them.  Every  part  of  China  is  now  open  to  mis- 

*  Church  Missionary  Society's  Report,  1862,  p.  198. 

f  History  of  the  Insurrection  in  China,  by  MM.  Callery  and  Yvan,  supple- 
mentary chapter,  p.  312. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  203 

sionary  labor,  except  only  the  devastated  cities  where  these  rob- 
bers find  refuge" 

A  little  later,  the  same  journal, — after  declaring,  on  the 
authority  of  a  correspondent  from  Shang-hae,  that  "  they  are 
polygamists  and  opium-smokers,"  and  that  "  they  do  not  pos- 
sess even  a  superficial  knowledge  of  the  tenets  of  Christianity, 
much  less  of  its  practice," — continues  thus  :  "  We  have  now 
some  reliable  description  of  the  working  of  that  rebellion 
which  had  found  so  much  favor  in  former  times  among  the 
missionaries,  who  hang  upon  the  skirts  of  the  Chinese  popula- 
tion, and  listen  to  far-off  tidings  of  what  is  happening  in  the 
interior." 

The  language  and  the  sympathies  of  the  Protestant  mission- 
aries, whose  real  character  the  great  journalist  thus  scornfully 
attests,  were  now  to  be  finally  rebuked  by  men  of  their  own 
religion.  "  Is  there  nothing  to  hope,"  asks  Sir  John  Bowring, 
in  1860,  "  from  the  Tae-ping  movement  ?  Nothing.  It  has 
become  little  better  than  dacoity.  Its  progress  has  everywhere 
been  marked  by  wreck  and  ruin  ;  it  destroys  cities,  but.  builds 
none  ;  consumes  wealth,  and  produces  none  ;  supersedes  one 
despotism  by  another  more  crushing  and  grievous  ;  subverts  a 
rude  religion  by  the  introduction  of  another  full  of  the  vilest 
frauds  and  the  boldest  blasphemies."*  "We  found  the  rebels," 
says  Mr.  Laurence  Oliphant,  almost  at  the  same  date,  "  making 
war  like  Jews,  living  like  the  worst  description  of  professing 
Christians,  and  believing  like — Chinamen  !"f  "  Their  idea  of 
God,"  says  the  Eev.  Mr.  Holmes,  a  candid  American  mission- 
ary, who  visited  them  towards  the  close  of  1860  and  found 
them  practising  "  the  most  revolting  idolatry,"  "  is  distorted 
until  it  is  inferior,  if  possible,  to  that  entertained  by  the 
Chinese  idolaters.";):  "  They  do  nothing,"  adds  an  English 
traveller  in  1861,  "but  burn,  murder,  and  destroy;  they  hardly 
profess  any  thing  beyond  that."§  It  is  "  a  reign  of  hideous  ruin 
and  unutterable  desolation,"  says  another  eye-witness  at  a  still 
later  date,  while  its  "  so-called  religious  character  can  only  be 
regarded  as  the  most  monstrous  blasphemy  the  world  has  ever 
witnessed."  He  even  adds  that  the  missionaries  themselves, 
though  the  statement  is  only  true  of  some  of  their  number, 
"have  given  up  all  hope  of  it,  shocked,  no  doubt,  by  its  hideous 
desecration  of  every  name  and  idea  we  are  taught  to  revere."] 

Yet  even  in  breaking  their  alliance  with  these  criminals,  the 

*  The  CornMll  Magazine,  January,  1860. 

f  Lord  Elgin's  Mission,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  463. 

j:  The  World,  New  York  journal,  December  28,  1860. 

The  Times,  May  15,  1801. 

Ibid.,  August  2,  1861. 


204:  CHAPTER   II. 

missionaries  have  only  acquired  fresh  dishonor.  Even  the 
English  in  China  proclaim  that  they  now  revile  the  Tae-pings 
only  because  the  latter  have  cast  them  out.  When  Mr.  Roberts, 
the  preceptor  of  the  rebel  chief,  said  at  last,  in  1862,  "  I  have 
turned  over  an  entirely  new  leaf,  and  arn  now  as  much  opposed 
to  them  as  I  was  ever  in  favor  of  them,"  it  was  only  because 
Kan-Wang  butchered  his  servant  before  his  eyes,  and  grossly 
insulted  himself,  besides  robbing  him  of  his  personal  property. 
"  Most  persons  will  agree,"  says  the  London  and  China  Tele- 
graph of  the  31st  of  March,  1862,  "  that  he  (Roberts)  fully  de- 
serves any  amount  of  suffering  that  may  be  inflicted  on  him. 
Mr.  Roberts  has  done  his  utmost  to  delude  Europeans  as  to  the 
true  character  of  the  Tae-pings  ;  he  has  kept  back  some  facts, 
has  falsified  others,  and  has  acted  throughout  in  a  manner 
utterly  inconsistent  with  his  assumed  character  of  a  Christian 
missionary.  On  such  conduct  no  comment  can  be  too  severe." 

Finally,  that  we  may  see  the  real  influence  of  Protestantism 
in  China  appreciated  by  its  own  professors,  and  its  complicity 
with  this  frightful  manifestation  of  a  system  professedly  derived 
from  the  Protestant  Bible,  and  "  essentially  Protestant  in  its 
principles,  in  its  origin,  development,  and  tendency,"  distinctly 
affirmed,  let  us  note  the  following  explicit  declarations. 

"It  is  always  laid  down  as  an  axiom  in  the  books  and  mani- 
festoes of  the  Tae-ping  insurgents,"  says  Dr.  Scherzer,  "  that 
the  doctrines  of  Christianity,  as  deduced  from  the  writings  of 
the  missionary  societies,  are  the  leading  principle  of  the  move- 
ment."* "The  rebel  leaders,"  observes  one  who  knew  them, 

"  are  to,  a  great  extent the  discharged  servants  and 

horse-boys  of  the  European  residents"^  and  therefore  familiar 
with  the  practice  as  well  as  the  theory  of  Protestantism.  Some 
of  them  had  even  been  paid  assistant  missionaries !  Kan-Wang, 
one  of  their  "kings,"  "had  for  years  been  holding  the  position 
of  native  catechist  in  our  principal  Chinese  colony.";):  "Tien- 
Wang's  Christianity,"  says  another,  "is  nothing  but  the  rank 
blasphemy  of  a  lunatic,"  though  he  has  received  "  dozens  of 
Bibles,"  and  every  form  of  instruction  which  the  missionaries 
could  offer  him,  besides  being  "talked  to,  written  to,  memorial- 
ized, and  addressed  in  all  shapes  and  forms  about  the  truths  of 
Christianity,"  but  only  to  make  him  spurn  his  former  teachers, 
whom  he  silences  with  this  argument,  that  "  he  has  been  to 
heaven,  and  they  have  not."§ 


*  Voyage  of  the  Novara,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  369  (1862). 
See  the  Times.  March  11,  1862. 
Brine  ch  x..  p.  242. 
Blakiston,  ch.  iii.,  p.  43. 


MISSIONS   IN   CHINA.  205 

"We  see  in  this  movement,"  says  Mr.  Edkins,  still  rejoicing 
in  the  evils  which  he  and  his  colleagues  had  assisted  to  create, 
"The  effect  of  the,  distribution  of  'Bibles  and  Christian  tracts.7'* 
"  This  Tae-ping  revolution,"  adds  a  writer  in  the  China  Mail, 
of  the  24th  of  February,  1859,  "  is  the  result  of  foreign  inter- 
course with  China  ;  this  blasphemous  manifesto,"  forwarded 
by  the  rebels  to  Lord  Elgin,  "  is  a  result  of  Christianity 
preached  to  its  people.  Truly  we  cannot  pride  ourselves  over 
such  results !" 

And  this  is  all,  as  its  own  advocates  confess,  which  Protes- 
tantism has  accomplished  in  China.  It  could  not  convert  the 
Chinese,  but  it  could  create  the  Tae-ping  code  of  religion  and 
morals,  that  horrible  compound  of  "  Protestant  principles" 
and  Pagan  interpretations  which  Mr.  Hervey,  the  British  con- 
sul at  JSTingpo,  reported  to  Mr.  Bruce,  the  minister  at  Pekin, 
to  be  "  the  most  gigantic  and  blasphemous  imposition  as  a  creed 
that  the  world  has  ever  witnessed. "f  After  fifty  years  of  costly 
but  sterile  effort,  it  has  been  willing  to  redeem  its  failures  even 
by  an  alliance  with  Siu-Tsuen  and  his  sanguinary  crew  !  This 
is  the  conclusion  of  labors  in  which  two  hundred  men — English, 
German,  and  American — have  been  actively  engaged,  with 
unlimited  resources,  during  half  a  century  ;  and  it  is  in  the 
following  remarkable  words  that  the  final  issue  of  their  work 
is  appreciated  even  by  the  men  who  most  warmly  desired  its 
success,  and  were  most  solicitous  to  conceal  its  failure  :  "  All 
past  missionary  experience,"  says  a  grave  correspondent  of  the 
Times,  who  dates  from  Canton,  on  the  12th  of  May,  1859, 
"  goes  far  to  enforce  the  unwelcome  truth,  that  the  abstract 
doctrines  of  a  Protestant  faith  find  acceptance  among  a  heathen 
and  idolatrous  race  with  infinitely  greater  difficulty  than 
Romanism.  There  stands  the  fact."  '•  There  is  a  wide  field," 
says  one  of  the  most  influential  of  American  journalists  in  1861, 
after  carefully  reviewing  the  latest  reports  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries,  "for  the  exercise  of  missionary  labor  in  China; 
but  we  are  disposed  to  believe  that  the  fruits  of  that  labor  will 
be  reaped  by  the  Romish,  and  not  by  the  Protestant  Church." 
It  was  the  consideration  of  the  relations  of  Protestantism  with 
the  Tae-ping  rebels,  and  their  admitted  results,  which  com- 
pelled this  reluctant  admission,  and  forced  the  same  writer  to 
confess,  with  almost  astonishing  candor,  that  only  the  Catholic 
missionary  can  now  repair  the  evils  which  the  Protestant  agents 
have  created,  or  exorcise  the  unclean  spirit  with  whom  they 
have  made  a  treaty  of  alliance.  "Although  the  religion  of  the 

*  Ch.  xv.,  p.  278. 

f  The  Times,  June  13, 1862. 


206  CHAPTER   II. 

Tae-ping,"  he  says,  may  be  considered  half  Christian,  it  will, 
we  think,  only  be  developed  and  perfected  under  the  benevo- 
lent auspices  of  the  Church  of  Rome."* 


CONCLUSION. 

And  now  we  have  heard  enough.  We  have  traced,  in  all 
its  details,  the  contrast  winch  the  Chinese  missions  exhibit  in 
their  agents,  their  method,  and  their  results.  During  three 
centuries  we  have  seen  the  missionaries  of  the  Catholic  Church 
— in  freedom  or  in  chains,  in  the  palace  of  the  emperor  or  the 
obscurity  of  a  dungeon,  in  the  dignity  of  their  lives  and  the 
heroism  of  their  death — everywhere  confessing  Him  by  whose 
grace  they  became  what  they  were.  And  we  have  seen  that 
the  spiritual  children  whom  they  begot,  in  every  province  of 
that  empire,  from  the  deserts  of  Tartary  to  the  gulf  of  Siam, 
were  worthy  of  them.  The  annals  of  Christianity  tell  of  no 
braver  deeds,  the  records  of  its  combats  contain  no  nobler 
triumphs.  St.  Peter  would  have  embraced  such  apostles  as  his 
brethren  ;  St.  Paul  would  have  said  to  such  disciples,  "  You 
are  our  glory  and  our  joy. "f 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  seen  the  missionaries  of  another 
religion  crowded  together  in  the  seaports  of  China,  "  listening 
to  far-off  tidings  of  what  is  happening  in  the  interior;"  but 
we  have  not  once  met  them  in  Su-tchuen,  nor  in  Corea,  nor  in 
Tong-King,  nor  in  Mongolia,  nor  in  Tartary,  nor  in  Thibet. 
They  have  consumed  fifty  years,  and  untold  sums  of  money, 
in  safely  multiplying  books  which  nobody  could  either  read 
or  understand ;  they  have  scandalized  the  very  heathen,  as 
well  as  their  owTn  friends,  by  the  manner  of  their  life,  so  that 
the  former  called  them  "  Lie-preaching  devils,"  and  the  latter 
only  named  them  with  a  jest  or  a  sneer  ;  they  have  gathered  a 
few  disciples  whom  they  hesitated  to  receive,  and  were  ashamed 
to  acknowledge,  who  took  their  wages  without  thanks,  and  plun- 
dered them  without  remorse ;  they  have  published  reports,  which 
they  privately  confessed  to  be  false,  of  conversions  which  never 
took  place;  and  they  have  only  succeeded  at  last  in  confirming 
more  deeply  in  their  errors  the  heathen,  to  whom  they  have  made 
Christianity  both  hateful  and  ludicrous,  and  in  obstructing  the 
apostolic  labors  of  men  whom  they  reviled  without  knowing, 
and  whose  heroism  they  grudgingly  confessed  without  once 
daring  to  imitate  it.  During  two  whole  generations  they  have 
watched  the  brave  press  forward  to  the  battle-field,  but  have 

*  New  York  Herald,  February  17, 1861. 
f  1  Thess.  ii.  20. 


MISSIONS  IN  CHINA.  207 

themselves  refused  to  take  part  in  the  fight.  They  had  no 
vocation  to  this  apostolic  warfare,  and  they  knew  it.  "  These 
actions,"  they  seem  to  have  said,  "  belong  not  to  such  as  us." 
And  so  when  blood  began  to  flow,  and  the  moment  arrived 
for  confessing  the  Name  of  Jesus,  they  turned  their  heads  and 
fled  away.  And  while  the  furnace  was  being  heated,  "  seven 
times  more  than  it  was  wont  to  be  heated,"  and  the  valiant 
"  walked  in  the  midst  of  the  flame,  praising  God  and  blessing 
the  Lord,"  and  even  women  and  children,  but  yesterday 
pagans,  were  crying  aloud  in  the  midst  of  their  torments,  "  Let 
them  know  that  thou  art  the  Lord,  the  only  God,"*  these  men 
hastened  to  their  homes,  to  hide  themselves  in  an  inner  room, 
and  to  write  words  of  malice  against  the  faith  which  the  mar- 
tyrs were  sealing  with  their  blood,  and  against  the  apostles 
who  had  delivered  it  to  them. 

The  reader  has  now  sufficient  evidence  before  him  upon 
which  to  exercise  his  judicial  function,  and  may  at  length 
apply,  if  so  minded,  the  Divine  rule,  By  their  fruits  ye  shall 
know  them. 

*  Daniel  iii.  24,  45. 


CHAPTER  III. 


MISSIONS    IN    INDIA, 


PART  I. 


CATHOLIC    MISSIONS. 


MANY  voices  have  rebuked  England's  misrule  in  India,  but 
none  so  loudly  as  those  of  her  own  sons.  "  Were  we  to  be 
driven  out  of  India  this  day,"  said  one  of  her  most  illustrious 
statesmen,  "nothing  would  remain  to  tell  that  it  had  been  pos- 
sessed, during  the  inglorious  period  of  our  dominion,  by  any 
thing  better  than  the  orang-outang  or  the  tiger."41  And  long 
years  after,  in  1858,  a  writer  devoted  to  her  interests  could  still 
say,  "  At  the  door  of  England's  covetousness,  self-seeking,  and 
heartlessness,  lies  the  guilt  of  Indian  heathenism. "f 

The  history  of  England's  domination  in  India,  as  even  they 
whose  hearts  yearn  towards  her  have  confessed,  is  mainly  a 
record  of  covetousness  and  unbelief.  "The  depth  of  English 
irreligion  in  India,"  says  a  partial  student  of  its  history,  "is 
surely  quite  awful."J  A  thousand  writers  have  flung  the  same 
reproach  at  her,  and  often  in  language  which  makes  the  ears 
tingle.  But  if  we  cannot  reject  the  testimony  of  her  own 
people,  we  may  at  least  disclaim  all  sympathy  with  those  alien 
accusers  who  impute  to  her  offences  of  which  she  is  innocent, 
or  only  guilty  in  part.  In  the  eyes  of  such  men  her  crime  is 
not  that  she  governs  India  ill,  but  that  she  governs  it  at  all. 
This  is  what  they  cannot  forgive  her.  It  is  not  true,  as  her 
enemies  falsely  proclaim,  that  she  has  made  no  effort  to  convert 
the  tribes  of  Hindostan  ;  but  it  is  true  that  she  made  them  toe 

*  Burke.  Speech  on  Mr.  Fox's  East  India  Bill,  Works  vol.  iv.,  p.  41. 
f  British  India  by  John  Malcolm  Ludlow,  vol.  ii..  p.  367. 
\Ibid.,  p.  243. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  209 

late,  and  after  a  fashion  which  did  not  merit,  and  could  not 
receive,  the  benediction  of  God.  For  long  years,  as  we  shall 
learn  presently,  she  left  them  to  their  idols ;  bade  her  own  sons 
pay  honor  to  the  demons  of  the  land  ;  recruited  her  treasury — 
the  only  Christian  nation  which  ever  did  so — by  a  tax  on  idol 
worship ;  and  rivalled  even  the  votaries  of  Mahomet  and  Ganesa 
in  lubricity  and  intemperance.  Then  she  sent  a  few  adven- 
turers, hired  for  wages  among  the  sects  of  Denmark  and 
Sweden, — for  her  own  sons,  as  we  shall  hear,  refused  to  bear 
the  message, — to  preach  what  they  called  "  the  gospel"  to  men 
who  were  scarcely  more  ignorant  than  themselves  of  the  sacred 
learning  of  the  Apostles,  and  the  mysteries  of  the  spiritual  life. 
After  more  than  a  hundred  years  had  been  fully  reckoned,  better 
and  truer  men,  acting  as  they  were  led  by  their  conscience,  and 
only  despising  the  Church's  aid  because  they  knew  her  not, 
began,  one  by  one,  to  enter  this  paradise  of  devils.  To  exorcise 
such  a  legion  as  they  presently  encountered  was  beyond  their 
power ;  and  so  they  fled  away,  like  Martyn,  scared  and  cowed, 
for  the  devils  laughed  them  to  scorn.  But  their  history  shall 
be  recounted  in  their  own  words  in  its  proper  place.  Mean- 
while, let  us  speak  of  others,  who  were  before  them  in  time, 
above  them  in  gifts  and  graces  as  far  as  heaven  is  above  earth, 
and  who  left  them  an  example  which  they  knew  not  how  to 
imitate. 


ST.  THOMAS,  AND    ST.  FRANCIS   XAVIEK. 

That  St.  Thomas  preached  the  Gospel  in  India,  and  that  he 
failed  to  make  any  solid  or  permanent  impression  on  the  mass 
of  its  inhabitants,  are  truths  which  hardly  admit  of  denial. 
The  first  is  attested  by  various  and  abundant  evidence;  the 
whole  history  of  India  proves  the  last.  There  is  enough  in  the 
traditions  which  still  survive  in  Southern  India  to  show  that 
an  Apostle  has  passed  that  way ;  there  is  unhappily  more  than 
enough  to  demonstrate  that  an  after-growth  of  weeds  has  over- 
spread and  defaced  his  path.  He  was  one  of  the  Twelve, 
therefore  men  fear  to  say  that- his  mission  was  a  failure ;  if  they 
were  judging  one  of  his  successors,  they  would  say  it  without 
hesitation.  No  doubt  he  did  all  that  God  willed  him  to  do ; 
yet  we  find  ourselves  resisting  a  feeling  of  surprise  that  he  did 
no  more. 

It  is  true  that  some  Protestant  writers  of  little  reputation 
have  denied  that  St.  Thomas  visited  India,  as  others  have 
asserted,  with  equal  confidence,  that  St.  Peter  was  never  at 
Rome.  One  of  the  most  learned  of  orientalists  replies  to  them 

15 


210  CHAPTER   III. 

as  follows :  "  That  St.  Thomas  was  the  Apostle  of  the  Indies 
is  attested  by  all  ecclesiastical  records,  Greek,  Latin,  and 
Syriac."*  Even  Baldoeus  acknowledges,  "It  is  the  general 
opinion  that  the  Apostle  St.  Thomas  did  come  into  the  Indies. "f 
Bernoulli  also  attests  the  universal  tradition,  and  relates  how, 
in  course  of  time,  the  converts  of  the  Apostle  "  retournerent  a 
leur  ancienne  idolatrie."J  Our  own  Alfred  sent  presents  to  his 
tomb.§ 

Between  St.  Thomas  and  St.  Francis  Xavier  there  is  an 
interval  of  more  than  fourteen  hundred  years.  Whatever  was 
attempted  or  accomplished  during  that  long  period  towards  the 
conversion  of  India,  has  been  recorded,  as  far  as  their  knowledge 
permitted,  by  men  who  made  this  portion  of  history  their 
special  study.  The  subject,  however,  lies  beyond  the  limits  of 
our  immediate  inquiry.  We  have  a  sufficiently  wide  field  to 
survey,  and  little  temptation  to  stray  beyond  it.  All  that  we 
are  concerned  to  investigate  happened  between  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century  and  the  present  hour.  To  the  religious 
history  of  India  during  this  period,  or  at  least  to  an  outline  of 
its  more  prominent  incidents,  let  us  now  direct  our  attention. 

On  the  6th  of  May,  1542,  after  a  voyage  of  thirteen  months, 
St.  Francis  landed  at  Goa.  It  was  in  such  words  as  the 
following  that  St.  Ignatius  had  announced  to  him  his  election 
to  the  difficult  and  glorious  mission  for  which  others  had  been 
originally  destined,  but  which  it  was  the  will  of  God  to  confide 
to  Xavier.  "By  higher  counsels  than  those  of  our  short- 
sighted judgment,  Francis,  for  we  cannot  penetrate  the  designs 
of  God,  you,  and  not  Bobadilla,  are  destined  to  the  mission  of 
the  Indies.  Thus,  what  we  have  so  earnestly  desired,  what  we 
so  long  waited  for  in  vain  at  Venice,  this  passage  across  the 
seas  into  barbarous  countries,  now,  contrary  to  all  hope,  presents 
itself  to  you  here  in  Rome.  It  is  not  a  single  province  of 
Palestine,  wThich  we  were  seeking,  that  God  gives  you,  but  the 
Indies,  a  whole  world  of  people  and  nations.  This  is  the  soil 
which  He  intrusts  to  your  cultivation ;  this  is  the  field  which 
He  opens  to  your  labors."! 

It  is  difficult  to  speak  fitly  of  such  a  one  as  St.  Francis. 
When  we  attempt  to  do  so,  we  are  rebuked  at  the  outset  by  the 

*  Asseman.  Dissert,  de  Syris  Nestorianis,  tome  iv.,  p.  439 

f  In  Churchill's  Collection  of  Voyages,  vol.  iii.,  p  573. 

\  Description  de  I'Inde,  tome  i ,  p.  41. 

§  Henrion,  tome  i  ,  ch.  iv.,  p.  69.  "  Even  the  white  Jews  of  Cochin,"  says 
Dr.  Wolff,  "  testify  in  their  records,  engraven  upon  copper  plates,  that  when 
they  arrived  in  India  they  found  Nazarenes,  i.  e.  Christians,  converted  through 
the  preaching  of  the  Apostle  St.  Thomas." — Travels  and  Adventures  of  Dr. 
Wolff,  ch.  xxvii ,  p.  450. 

I  Life  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  by  Bartoli  and  Maffei ;  Oratorian  edition  (1858). 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  211 

admonition  of  one  who,  though  fully  qualified,  declined  a  simi- 
lar task,  saying,  "  Let  a  saint  write  about  a  saint."  Yet  if  we 
adhere  with  simplicity  to  the  narrative  of  his  biographers,  our 
unworthiness  may  pass  unperceived,  and  we  may  effect  our  pur- 
pose without  immodesty  or  presumption. 

The  life  of  Xavier,  if  he  had  been  the  only  Christian  of  his 
form  and  stature  since  the  last  of  the  Apostles  died,  would 
suffice  to  prove  the  truth  of  God  and  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
None  but  God  could  have  created,  none  but  the  Church  could 
have  used,  such  an  instrument.  The  world  and  the  sects  con- 
fess, with  mingled  anger  and  fear,  that  he  is  not  of  them. 
Doctor,  prophet,  and  apostle,  what  gift  which  one  of  our  race 
can  receive  or  use  was  denied  to  this  man  ?  Whilst  he  was  in 
the  world  few  understood,  perhaps  none  fully,  what  he  really 
was.  It  was  only  by  the  solemn  juridical  process  which  pre- 
ceded his  canonization,  and  in  which  evidence  was  adduced  on 
oath  such  as  would  have  more  than  satisfied  the  most  jealous 
and  exacting  tribunal  which  ever  sifted  human  testimony,  that 
some  of  the  facts  of  his  stupendous  career  were  revealed  to  nis 
fellow-creatures.  To  converse  at  the  same  moment  with  men  of 
various  nations  and  dialects,  so  that  each  thought  he  heard  him 
speak  his  own  tongue ;  to  satisfy  by  one  reply  subtle  and  oppo- 
site questions,  so  that  each  confessed  he  had  received  the  solution 
of  his  own  difficulty  in  the  words  which  answered  every  other ; 
to  heal  the  sick,  to  raise  the  dead,  to  bid  the  waves  be  still,  so 
that  the  very  Gentiles  called  him  in  their  rude  language,  "  the 
God  of  nature  y"  such  were  some  of  the  gifts  of  this  great 
apostle.  Yet  this  was  not  his  real  greatness.  It  was  his 
humility,  charity,  spotless  virtue,  and  intimate  union  with 
God,  which  marked  him  as  a  saint.  To  work  miracles  was  no 
necessary  part  of  his  character  or  office.  Yet  this  lower  gift 
was  also  added,  for  the  advantage  of  others,  to  those  which  had 
already  made  him  the  friend  and  disciple  of  Jesus. 

To  such  as  possess  the  gift  of  faith,  by  which  alone  Divine 
things  are  apprehended,  the  life  of  Xavier  is  as  a  book  written 
by  the  hand  of  God,  yet  without  a  single  mystery.  It  is  intel- 
ligible even  to  a  child.  Admiration  it  may  excite,  love,  joy,  and 
gratitude — every  thing  but  surprise.  The  Church  has  begotten 
since  her  espousals  with  Christ  a  thousand  such.  If  she  could 
cease  to  produce  saints,  she  would  cease  to  be.  But  that  hour 
will  only  arrive  when  the  number  is  full,  and  her  work  ended. 

To  all  others  St.  Francis  is,  of  course,  u  a  stone  of  offence." 
They  dare  not  deny  his  virtues,  but  they  are  peevish  and  irri- 
tated at  the  mention  of  his  miracles.  Why  spoil  the  fair  narra- 
tive of  his  life  with  these  idle  fables?  Such  deeds  take  him  out 
of  their  cognizance,  and  affront  their  good  sense;  so  they  affect 


212  CHAPTER   III. 

to  defend  him  from  the  injudicious  language  of  his  friends.  He 
was  a  good  and  devoted  man,  but  let  us  hear  nothing  of  mala- 
dies healed,  and  graves  opened.  We  are  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  Miracles  were  tolerable  in  the  first  ages ;  but  these 
are  now  a  long  way  off',  and  so  is  God.  He  must  not  be 
brought  too  near  to  us.  He  is  in  heaven,  and  we  on  earth  ; 
why  seek  to  diminish  the  distance  between  us  ?  True,  He 
promised  that  His  servants  should  do  such  things,  and  they  did 
them ;  it  cannot  be  denied,  at  least  not  openly,  since  it  is  writ- 
ten in  the  Scriptures.  Even  the  "shadow"  of  an  Apostle  falling 
on  the  sick  is  said  to  have  dispelled  their  infirmities;  and  though 
it  is  a  hard  saying,  and  takes  no  account  of  the  "laws  of  nature," 
and  is  directly  reproved  by  modern  science,  it  must  be  believed, 
whatever  effort  it  may  cost.  But  surely  there  is  enough  of  such 
things  in  the  Bible.  Why  add  to  them  ?  Why  should  our 
Lord  create  apostles  now  ?  They  are  dead  and  buried,  and 
have  left  no  successors  ;  it  is  irrational  to  pretend  to  revive 
them.  They  have  really  no  place  in  such  a  world  as  this,  least 
of  all  in  our  busy  and  sensible  England.  Such  tales  may  meet 
with  success  in  other  climes,  but  are  rebuked  by  the  robust 
good  sense  of  Britons,  and  shrink  before  their  manly  scrutiny 
to  the  puny  dimensions  of  fable.  And  so  they  cut  the  life  of 
St.  Francis  in  two,  accept  that  which  is  natural,  and  fling  away 
that  which  is  supernatural.  His  virtues  they  pardon,  not  with- 
out a  struggle,  but  they  can  go  no  further.  Like  Pilate,  they 
fear  to  condemn,  but  cannot  resolve  to  acquit. 

But  they  have  a  special  motive  for  denying  his  supernatural 
powers,  and  they  do  not  conceal  it.  They  are  so  far,  indeed, 
from  understanding  the  character  of  a  saint,  that  they  do  not 
even  believe  in  the  existence  of  one.  Why  should  the  Almighty 
have  made  any  thing  higher  than  themselves?  "A  good  man," 
as  they  speak, who  is  of  a  benevolent  mind,  gives  alms,  says  his 
prayers,  and  reads  the  Scriptures, — this  is  the  loftiest  type  of 
humanity  which  they  are  able  to  conceive.  All  beyond  this  is 
visionary  and  chimerical.  Such  a  man  as  St.  Francis  is  as 
wholly  unknown  to  them  as  he  is  to  the  inanimate  creatures, — 
the  unshapen  rocks,  the  rushing  waters,  and  the  waving  trees. 
But  they  perfectly  comprehend  that  if  they  admit  his  miracles, 
they  must  confess  his  doctrine.  And  so  an  Englishman  of  good 
repute,  and  more  than  average  intelligence,  says  of  the  first 
apostles  of  India:  "The  accounts  of  their  extraordinary  success 
cannot  be  credited,  without  admitting,  on  the  same  authority, 
the  miracles  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  and  others,  by  which  it  is 
said  to  have  been  promoted."*  This  is  equally  true  of  those 

*  Lord  Valentia's  Travels,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  204 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  213 

earlier  Apostles  who  witnessed  the  Transfiguration  ;  but  happily 
our  countrymen  are  inconsistent,  and  their  reverence  for  the 
Bible,  though  too  often  a  mere  superstition,  preserves  them 
from  excesses  into  which  more  logical  minds  have  fallen. 

That  St.  Francis  Xavier  had  the  gift  of  miracles  is  as  certain 
as  any  thing  which  depends  upon  human  testimony  and  the 
evidence  of  the  senses.  It  appears  to  be  confessed  even  by  some 
Protestant  writers.*  By  his  power  with  God  was  accomplished, 
again  and  again,  that  which  St.  Paul  relates  of  others,  by  whose 
faith,  he  says,  "  women  received  their  dead  raised  to  life  again." 
One  whom  he  raised  from  the  dead,  Francis  Ciavos,  afterwards 
entered  the  Society  of  Jesus.f  But  it  is  with  his  ordinary  work 
as  an  apostle,  which  in  truth  was  the  greatest  of  his  miracles, 
that  we  are  especially  concerned.  What  he  did  in  India  and 
Japan  there  is  no  need  to  relate  at  large,  for,  who  is  ignorant 
of  it  ?  He  did  what  man  never  did,  or  could  do,  except  by  the 
indwelling  might  of  God.  "  He  preached  with  such  vehemence 
of  soul  as  might  be  expected  in  a  man  tilled  with  the  Spirit  of 
God,  and  accustomed  to  the  light  of  eternal  truths ;  a  man 
whose  life  added  such  weight  to  his  words,  that  even  when 
silent,  the  mere  sight  of  him  was  sufficient  to  touch  the  sinner's 
heart."  And  the  traces  of  his  work,  in  spite  of  woes  and  mis- 
fortunes which  shall  be  recounted  hereafter,  and  which  might 
have  sufficed  utterly  to  uproot  the  tender  vine  which  he  had 

Elanted,  still  remain.  When  a  Protestant  minister  tried,  in 
iter  times,  to  seduce  the  people  who  had  long  lost  their  apos- 
tolic guides,  and  wrere  driven  to  wander,  like  sheep  without  a 
shepherd,  they  had  still  faith  enough  to  reply  to  his  new  doc- 
trine, "  When  you  can  raise  people  from  the  dead,  as  St.  Francis 
Xavier  did  in  this  very  place,  we  will  give  you  an  answer.'^ 
And  even  the  unconverted  pagans,  more  than  two  centuries 
after  his  death,  still  venerated  him  alter  their  gross  and  carnal 
fashion  ;  -for,  as  La  Croze  bitterly  observes,  "  There  is,  near 
Cape  Comorin,  an  old  idol  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  to  which  the 
heathen  themselves  make  pilgrimages.  They  call  it  the  Pagoda 
of  Parapadri,  i.  e.,  of  the  great  father  "§ 

"  He  released  those  who  were  possessed  by  the  devil,  and,  in  several  instan- 
ces, raised  the  dead.  Hence  he  obtained  the  name  of  the  Great  Father ;  but 
he  is  said  not  to  have  been  at  all  elated  by  the  authority  he  exercised,  or  the 
celebrity  he  acquired." — History  of  Ceylon,  by  Philalethes,  A.M.,  Oxon.  1817  ; 
ch.  xxxv..  p.  225.  "My  pen,"  says  the  Calvinist  Baldoeus,  "is  not  capable  of 
expressing  the  worth  of  so  great  a  man." — Churchill,  vol.  iii.,  p.  545. 

f  Henrion,  tome  i.,  2de  partie,  liv.  ii.,  p.  481. 

\  Lettres  JHdifiantes,  tome  x.,  p.  118. 

§  Histoire  du  Christianisme  des  Indes,  tome  ii.,  livre  iv.,  p.  31.  "  Eo  non 
Christian!  inodo  ex  omni  finitima  regione,  sed  ethnici  etiam  fama  acciti,  velut 
ad  certum  in  rebus  miseris  perfugium,  confluebant." — Cordara,  Hist,  Soc.  Jesu., 
pars  Ota.,  lib.  xvii.,  p.  665. 


214:  CHAPTER  III. 

Saint  Francis  has  described,  in  many  places,  his  method  of 
preaching  and  instruction.  As  far  as  words  can  exhibit  that 
which  passes  words,  it  was  simple  enough.  It  was  always  by 
the  Creed  and  the  Commandments — that  which  was  to  be  fie- 
lieved,  and  that  which  was  to  be  done — that  he  commenced  : 
and  these  he  expounded  with  extraordinary  care,  repeating  his 
lessons,  whenever  circumstances  allowed,  "twice  a  day  for  a 
whole  month."  "  It  is  impossible,"  writes  the  saint,  "  to  de- 
scribe the  admiration  of  the  Gentiles,  as  well  as  the  new  Chris- 
tians, for  our  holy  law,  which  they  declare  to  be  perfectly  in 
conformity  with  the  law  of  nature  and  right  reason.  What  I 
chiefly  insist  upon,  and  most  frequently  repeat,  are  the  Creed 
and  the  Commandments."  And  we  know  what  abundant  fruits 
followed  his  persuasive  teaching,  so  that  his  biographers  say :  "  It 
would  be  difficult  to  give  an  idea  of  the  harvest  of  souls,  or  of 
the  works  worthy  of  an  infant  Church  in  its  first  fervor,  which 
here  attended  our  holy  apostle.  He  himself,  in  a  letter  to  St. 
Ignatius,  OWTIIS  that  he  has  not  words  to  describe  them  ;  but 
says,  that  frequently  the  multitudes  who  flocked  to  him  for 
baptism  were  so  numerous,  that  he  was  unable  to  go  on  raising 
his  arm  to  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  in  the  administration  of 
the  sacrament,  and  that  his  voice  literally  became  extinct,  from 
the  incessant  repetition  of  the  Creed,  the  Commandments,  and 
a  certain  brief  admonition  of  the  duties  of  the  Christian  life,  the 
bliss  of  heaven,  the  pains  of  hell,  and  what  good  or  evil  deeds 
lead  to  the  one  or  the  other."* 

And  amidst  his  great  labors,  taking  barely  nourishment  suf- 
ficient to  support  life,  and  finding  repose  at  night  chiefly  in 
prayer  and  meditation,  so  that  he  was  continually  seen  rapt  in 
ecstasy  by  those  who  watched  him  in  his  private  hours,  he  re- 
ceived those  "abundant  consolations"  of  which  St.  Paul  speaks, 
and  with  which  he  seems  to  have  been  favored  above  many  of 
the  saints.  "  Often  have  I  heard  a  person,"  he  writes  to  St. 
Ignatius,  as  if  speaking  of  another,  "laboring  amongst  these 
Christians  falteringly  exclaim:  O  Lord,  give  me  not  such  great 
comfort  in  this  life ;  or  if,  in  the  excess  of  Thine  infinite  good- 
ness and  mercy,  Thou  wTilt  thus  favor  me,  call  me  to  Thy  heav- 
enly glory,  for  it  is  too  great  a  torment  to  live  any  longer  with- 
out seeing  Thee." 

A  few  words  will  suffice  about  the  actual  results  of  his  labors. 
"  When  the  saint  entered  the  kingdom  of  Travaucore,  he  found 
it  entirely  idolatrous,  but  when  he  left  it,  after  a  few  months' 
residence,  it  was  entirely  Christian."  Along  the  coast  "  he 
founded  no  fewer  than  forty-five  churches."  And  as  the  labors 

*  Life,  p.  73. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  215 

of  the  first  apostles  were  "  confirmed  by  signs  following,"  so 
innumerable  miracles  attested  the  continual  presence  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  with  this  man  of  God.  Even  children,  armed  with 
some  object  which  had  touched  his  person,  his  cross,  or  his 
rosary,  were  able  to  cast  out  devils  and  heal  the  sick,  and  were 
often  employed  by  him  for  such  purposes,  when  his  own  occupa- 
tions left  him  no  leisure  to  accept  the  invitations  which  pressed 
upon  him  from  all  parts.  At  Malacca,  a  mother  whose  child 
had  been  three  days  in  the  grave,  came  to  him  in  faith,  and 
desired  that  the  lost  one  might  be  restored  ;  for,  said  she,  "  God 
grants  all  things  to  your  prayers."  "  Go,"  he  replied,  "  and 
open  the  tomb,  you  will  find  her  alive."  And  thereupon,  in  pres- 
ence of  a  vast  concourse  of  spectators,  who  had  assembled  to  wit- 
ness the  miracle,  for  his  power  was  known,  "  the  stone  was  re- 
moved, the  grave  opened,  and  the  young  girl  was  found  alive."* 

In  the  island  of  Moro,  "  he  converted  the  whole  city  of  Tolo, 
containing  twenty-five  thousand  souls,  and  left  at  his  death  no 
fewer  than  twenty -nine  towns,  villages,  and  hamlets,  added  to  the 
kingdom  of  Christ,  and  subject  to  His  law."  By  the  year  1548, 
more  than  two  hundred  thousand  Christians  might  be  numbered 
"  along  the  two  coasts  starting  from  Cape  Comorin ;  and  they 
afterwards  gave  full  evidence  of  their  virtue  by  the  courage  with 
which  they  encountered  the  persecutions  raised  against  them  by 
the  Gentiles ;  when,  far  from  denying  their  faith,  all,  even  mere 
children,  readily  presented  their  necks  to  the  executioners." 

But  we  need  not  pursue  further  the  details  of  his  history. 
Since  the  days  of  St.  Paul  no  greater  missionary,  perhaps,  has 
appeared  on  earth.  Like  St.  Paul,  too,  he  prevailed,  because 
he  was  firmly  knit  to  Peter,  and  to  his  Holy  See.  It  was  in 
the  might  of  her  blessing  that  he  went  forth,  and  without  it  he 
would  have  been  only  a  visionary  and  a  fanatic, — perhaps  an 
heresiarch, — at  best  a  brilliant  but  unprofitable  rhetorician. 

That  St.  Francis  was  a  man  taught  of  God,  and  full  of  the 
Holy  Ghost, — that  he  was  most  dear  to  the  Sacred  Heart  of 
Jesus, — that  the  Catholic  faith  which  he  believed  and  delivered 
to  others  was  the  true  and  perfect  revelation  of  the  Most  High, 
— and  that  in  the  regions  which  he  evangelized  he  did  an 
apostle's  work  and  obtained  >an  apostle's  reward ;  these  are 
truths  which  none  would  even  have  doubted,  unless  ignorance 
had  blinded  their  judgment,  or  sin  obscured  it,  or  pride  and 
passion  had  supplied  a  motive  for  denying  what  the  Gentiles 
themselves,  less  blind  and  perverse,  and  moved  by  better  and 
purer  instincts,  were  constrained  to  admit  and  proclaim. 

Two  hundred  and  thirty  years  after  the  death  of  the  saint, 

*  Life,  p.  140. 


216  CHAPTER  III. 

his  tomb  was  opened,  and  then  the  promise  which  such  as  he 
have  shared,  by  a  special  privilege,  with  their  Divine  Master, 
that  even  their  flesh  "  should  not  see  corruption,"  was  once 
more  fulfilled.  "  His  face  was  not  in  the  least  changed,  so  that 
portraits  might  have  been  taken  from  it."*  Yet  it  is  of  a  man 
thus  distinguished  from  his  fellows  even  in  death,  that  the  dis- 
ciples of  another  faith  have  ventured  to  speak  in  words  which 
even  the  heathen  would  blush  to  use.  "  Francis  Xavier,"  says 
the  Rev.  James  Hough,  "  lived  for  the  reputation  of  his  order."f 
Dr.  Geddes  openly  scoffs  at  him  ;;f  Dr.  Morrison  laments  his 
"  misty  and  obscure  views  ;"§  Dr.  Grant  denies  that  he  could 
work  miracles;!  and  in  1857,  another  English  writer,  as  if 
anxious  to  prove  that  even  the  pagan  has  keener  religious  in- 
stincts than  some  who  boast  to  have  a  special  insight  into  the 
mysteries  of  revelation,  confidently  affirms,  that  "  his  Christian 
principles  were  of  a  very  questionable  nature. "T  Alas !  for 
those  who  have  less  discernment  of  the  works  of  God,  and  the 
signs  of  His  presence,  than  even  the  heathen  and  the  outcast. 


THE    SUCCESSORS    OF   SAINT   FKANCIS. 

St.  Francis  came  nearer  than  most  of  his  race  to  the  highest 
excellence  which  a  creature  can  attain,  but  we  shall  now  see 
that  his  successors  in  the  Indian  mission  were  not  unworthy  of 
him.  While  yet  on  earth  he  had  said,  of  himself,  and  his  few 
companions :  u  This  mission  will  scarcely  survive  its  founders, 
unless  you  send  fresh  laborers."  His  appeal  was  heard,  and 
it  is  the  career  of  those  who  followed  in  his  footsteps,  which  we 
are  next  to  trace.  Through  every  fluctuation  of  good  and  evil 
fortune,  but  with  patient  endurance  and  steadfast  constancy,  his 
immediate  successors  pursued  the  task  which  he  had  commenced. 
By  their  labors  the  ecclesiastical  province  of  Goa,  originally 
constituted  by  St.  Francis,  had  been  divided  into  two,  of  which 
the  second  was  named  the  province  of  Malabar ;  and  in  addition 
to  the  flourishing  missions  established  on  both  coasts,  new 
churches  had  been  formed  in  the  interior,  which  remain  to 
this  day,  wherever  the  messengers  of  peace  found  an  entrance. 
Let  us  pass  over  an  interval  of  fifty  years,  and  we  come  to  a 

*  Annales,  tome  viii.,  p.  583. 

History  of  Christianity  in  India,  vol.  i.,  p.  211  (1839). 
History  of  the  Church  of  Malabar,  p.  42. 
The  Fathers  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  vol.  i.,  p.  57. 
Bampton  Lectures,  app.,  p.  344. 

\Two  Tears'  Travel  in  Persia,  &c.,  by  Robert  B.  M.  Binning,  Esq.,  Madras 
Civil  Service,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  97. 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  217 

name  illustrious  in  the  apostolic  annals,  and  to  an  epoch 
worthy  of  our  earnest  attention.  Few  periods  have  been  more 
glorious  to  the  Church,  none  more  misunderstood  by  her  en- 
emies. A  brief  allusion  to  the  political  state  of  Western  India 
at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  is  indispensable  to  a  full 
understanding  of  the  events  which  are  now  to  be  related. 

Portugal  had  been  chosen  by  Divine  Providence  as  the  chief 
instrument  in  propagating  the  Christian  faith  in  the  wide 
regions  of  the  East.  "  From  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  the 
frontier  of  China,  an  extent  of  twelve  thousand  miles  of  coast,  all 
the  principal  emporia  were  in  her  possession."*  The  discoveries 
of  Yasco  di  Gama,  and  the  victories  of  Albuquerque,  had  led  to 
the  planting  of  the  Cross  along  the  whole  western  shore  of  the 
Indian  peninsula.  Animated  at  first  by  an  admirable  zeal  for 
the  glory  of  God,  the  fervent  and  generous  men  whom  Portugal 
sent  forth  to  so  many  lands,  were  at  least  as  anxious  to  enlarge 
the  dominions  of  the  faith  as  to  promote  the  interests  of  their 
own  nation,  which  at  this  time  had  attained  the  climax  of  her 
splendor  and  renown.  But  this  first  epoch  of  faith  and  zeal 
did  not  last  long.  The  noble  traditions  which  had  inspired  the 
conquerors  of  Malabar  ceased  to  animate  men  who  were  now 
absorbed  only  by  the  pursuit  of  gain,  and  the  ignoble  arts  of  a 
greedy  and  unscrupulous  traffic.  Thus  it  is  ever  with  men  and 
their  works.  When  life  seems  most  vigorous,  then  comes 
dissolution  or  decay.  All  fail,  by  their  own  fault,  save  only  the 
Church,  which  abides  forever.  The  Portuguese  name,  once  so 
pure,  was  defiled  by  those  who  bore  it ;  and  the  city  of  Goa,  the 
metropolis  of  Portuguese  India,  became  a  proverb  and  a  scandal 
among  the  heathen.  The  horror  which  the  Indians  had 
now  conceived  of  the  European  character,  and  the  contempt 
which  they  felt  for  its  vices  and  inconsistencies,  had  become 
almost  a  passion.  The  use  of  gross  meats  and  of  strong  liquors, 
condemned  both  by  the  law  and  the  instincts  of  these  Asiatic 
tribes,  was  inexpressibly  revolting  to  men  who  comprehended 
only  the  rigors  and  austerities  of  religion,  and  confounded  the 
means  of  purification  with  the  end.  "  Nothing,"  says  a  modern 
traveller,  "  equals  their  frugality  ;"f  and  one  of  the  latest 
historians  of  India  adds,  that  they  still  practise  the  same 
austerities,  "from  affectation  of  Brahminical  purity."^  To 
be  a  pranguij  or  even  to  hold  communication  with  one, 
was,  in  their  estimation,  the  foulest  dishonor.  The  rare  vir- 
tues which  might  still  be  witnessed  in  individuals,  failed  to 
subdue  the  undiscriminating  scorn  and  hate  with  which  they 

*  Discoveries  in  Asia,  by  Hugh  Murray,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  ii.,  p.  70. 
f  Haussman,  Voyage  en  Chine,  tome  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  129. 
\  Rickards'  India,  vol.  i.,  pp.  51,  272. 


218  CHAPTER   III. 

regarded  the  Christian  name.  Conversions  were  at  an  end. 
For  fourteen  years  Father  Gonsalvo  Fernandez  had  labored 
amongst  the  people  of  Madura  without  gaining  so  much  as  a 
single  new  disciple.  His  own  virtues  extorted  their  unwilling 
admiration,  but  he  was  identified,  by  rank  and  origin,  with 
men  who  belonged,  as  they  deemed,  to  an  almost  bestial  caste. 
It  was  necessary  to  apply  a  remedy  to  this  immense  evil.  The 
hour  had  arrived  which  was  to  determine  the  fortunes  of 
Christianity  in  India,  and  decide,  at  least  for  a  long  period, 
whether  light  or  darkness  should  cover  the  land. 

At  such  a  crisis  the  hand  of  God  was  stretched  forth,  to  lay 
hold  of  the  man  whom  he  had  chosen  to  accomplish  a  work 
apparently  impossible,  and  to  guide  him  to  the  distant  shore 
on  which  this  terrible  conflict  between  good  and  evil  was  about 
to  commence.  The  apostle  destined  for  this  formidable  mis- 
sion was  Robert  de'  Nobili,  one  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  and  it  is  of  his  career  that  we  must  now  speak. 


Robert  de'  Nobili,  like  so  many  of  the  earlier  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries, was  a  man  of  noble  birth,  a  nephew  of  Cardinal 
Bellarmine,  and  near  kinsman  of  Pope  Marcellus  II.  In 
quitting  Europe,  and  the  brilliant  position  which  would  have 
seduced  a  less  heroic  temper  than  his,  he  had  abandoned  with 
deliberate  contempt  the  honors  and  dignities  of  which  the 
world  vainly  strives  to  redeem  the  insignificance  by  persuading 
such  men  to  accept  them.  He  began,  then,  like  a  true  apostle, 
by  forsaking  all  to  follow  Christ;  and  his  after-course  was 
worthy  of  this  beginning.  *  In  1606,  in  company  with  Father 
Albert  Laerzio,  the  provincial  of  Malabar,  he  entered  the  mis- 
sion of  Father  Fernandez,  and  there  set  himself  to  contemplate 
the  terrible  problem  which  God  designed  him  to  solve.  With 
the  keen  vision  of  a  saint,  and  the  calm  strength  of  a  heart 
which  had  already  accepted  martyrdom  in  purpose  and  desire, 
he  examined  the  battle-field  which  lay  before  him.  The  next 
moment  his  resolve  was  made.  He  would  stand  face  to  face 
with  the  great  demon  who  vexed  India  with  his  sorceries  and 
enchantments,  wrestle  with  him  in  single  combat,  and  by 
God's  grace  trample  him  under  foot.  And  this  resolve  he 
lived  to  execute. 

St.  Paul,  the  great  exemplar  of  missionaries,  had  said  :  "  All 
things  are  lawful  to  me,  but  all  things  are  not  expedient."  And 
again  :  "  If  meat  scandalize  my  brother,  I  will  never  eat  flesh." 
Here  was  a  rule  for  later  apostles.  The  new  evangelist  of  India 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA. 

understood  that,  for  the  sake  of  his  brother,  he  must  abstain 
from  flesh,  that  he  might  not  give  scandal ;  and  from  that  hour 
he  made  a  vow  to  God  that  he  would  never  eat  meat  again. 
But  this  was  a  very  small  part  of  the  whole  sacrifice  required 
of  him.  The  institution  of  castes,  though  by  many  deemed  only 
a  civil  institution,  analogous  to  the  distinctions  of  rank  which 
exist  in  Europe,*  could  not  be  permanently  recognized,  for  it 
was  contrary  to  the  great  principle  of  Christian  fraternity.  But 
neither  could  souls  be  abandoned  for  such  a  cause.f  "  Touched 
by  the  deplorable  blindness  of  these  people  buried  in  the  dark- 
ness of  death,"  says  his  companion  Laerzio,  "  penetrated  with 
the  grand  thought  that  Jesus  Christ  came  for  the  salvation  of 
all  men,  that  He  must  everywhere  triumph  over  the  demon, 
destroy  his  kingdom,  and  release  his  captives;  recognizing 
also  the  true  cause  of  an  obstinacy  so  frightful  and  perverse ; 
Father  Robert  de'  Nobili  resolved  to  apply  to  this  evil 
an  effective  remedy.  Imitating  the  example  of  St.  Paul,  who 
became  all  things  to  all  men,  and  that  of  the  Eternal  Word, 
who  became  Man  in  order  to  save  men;  Father  Robert  said 
within  himself, — '  I  also  will  make  myself  an  Indian  in  order 
to  save  the  Indians.' ':  He  saw  at  a  glance  all  which  this 
sublime  purpose  involved,  and  without  fear  he  accepted  all.J 

Authorized  by  the  Archbishop  of  Cranganore,  as  well  as  by 
his  immediate  superior,  he  now  presented  himself  before  the 
Brahmins.  UI  am  neither  a  Prangui  nor  a  Portuguese,"  said 
he,  "  but  a  Roman  Rajah,  that  is,  a  member  of  the  highest  order 
of  nobility  ;  I  am  also  a  Saniassi,  that  is,  a  penitent  who  has  re- 
nounced the  world  and  all  its  pleasures."  Both  statements,  as 
a  Protestant  writer  of  our  own  day  candidly  remarks,  were 
"  strictly  true."§  He  had  as  good  a  right  to  make  them  as  St. 
Paul  to  declare,  at  one  time  that  he  was  a  Hebrew,  at  another 
that  he  was  a  Roman  citizen.  From  this  moment,  condescending 
by  a  supreme  effort  of  charity  to  the  infirmities  of  those  whom 
he  desired  to  save,  he  separated  from  his  brethren,  who  were 
known  to  have  mingled  with  men  of  other  castes,  and  admitted 
none  but  Brahmins  to  his  society.  Rice,  bitter  herbs,  and  water, 
tasted  once  in  twenty-four  hours,  constituted  his  whole  nourish- 

*  The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste,  by  B.  A.  Irving,  Esq.,  ch.  i.,  p.  35. 

f  "  Caste  is  one  among  many  instances  of  the  peculiar  exaggerations  in  which 
the  Hindoo  mind  loves  to  indulge  .  .  .  Caste  may  be  modified  and  rendered  less 
harsh  in  its  general  outlines,  but  it  will  never  cease  to  exist."  Travels  in  Peru 
and  India,  by  Clements  11.  Markham,  F.S.A.,  F.R.G.S.,  ch.  xxv.,  p.  424  (1862). 

\  The  following  narrative  is  mainly  derived  from  the  Letters  published  by 
the  Pere  Bertrand  in  his  Histoire  de  la  Mission  du  Madure,  of  which  the  ori- 
entalist Mohl  reported  to  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Paris,  in  1841,  "  they  ought  to 
have  a  place  in  all  the  libraries  of  the  learned."  Rapport,  31  Mai,  p.  19. 

§  Theory  of  Caste,  ch.  v.,  p.  127. 


220  CHAPTER    III. 

ment ;  a  humble  cabin  was  his  house.  Buried  in  a  mysterious 
solitude,  he  received  visitors  only  with  extreme  reserve.  The 
fame  of  the  great  Saniassi  of  the  West  is  gradually  bruited 
abroad,  and  the  doctors  of  the  Gentiles  crave  an  audience  of  the 
illustrious  penitent.  They  are  told  by  his  Brahmin  attendant 
that  the  Father  is  engaged  in  prayer,  or  in  meditation,  or  in  the 
study  of  the  Divine  law.  After  being  rejected  two  or  three  times 
they  are  at  length  admitted.  Fascinated  by  his  eloquence  and 
distinction  of  manner,  and  charmed  by  the  purity  and  eloquence 
with  which  he  speaks  their  language,  by  his  recitations  from 
memory  of  the  most  famous  Indian  authors,  or  by  the  verses 
which  he  declaims  with  exquisite  taste,  they  hasten  to  publish 
abroad  the  rare  qualities  of  the  hidden  apostle.  Their  report 
reaches  the  ears  of  the  king,  who  sends  a  message  expressing 
his  desire  to  see  him.  The  Father,  consenting  to  receive  these 
empty  honors,  but  not  for  his  own  sake,  and  deeming  that  the 
time  was  not  yet  come,  replies  that  he  is  absorbed  by  the  duties 
of  his  state,  and  does  not  quit  his  house.  At  length  he  makes 
his  first  conquest.  A  Brahmin  of  the  highest  rank,  aspiring  after 
perfection,  but  disdaining  the  religion  of  Christ,  of  keen  and 
practised  intellect,  and  familiar  with  the  philosophical  systems 
of  the  East,  resolves  to  visit  him.  Their  conference  lasts  twenty 
days,  during  which  the  subtle  conflict  of  two  vigorous  minds  is 
sustained,  and  all  the  treasures  of  Christian  science  are  unfolded 
by  the  hand  of  a  master.  The  Brahmin  was  no  common  ad- 
versary. Skilled  in  logic  and  metaphysics,  versed  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Platonicians,  he  combated  every  position.  At  length 
he  avowed  himself  vanquished,  embraced  "  the  foolishness  of 
the  Cross,"  was  instructed,  and  admitted  to  baptism  ;  and  then 
he  became  himself  an  evangelist.  His  example  was  speedily 
followed  by  others,  convinced  chiefly  by  the  solid  reasons 
which  the  neophyte  unfolded  before  them.  On  the  8th  of 
August,  1608,  another  of  the  same  order,  but  eminent  among 
all  for  his  natural  gifts,  applied  to  the  Father  for  instruction. 
Touched  by  the  truths  of  faith,  he  flung  away  with  indignation 
the  ashes  with  which  his  forehead  was  smeared,  and  forbade  his 
three  sons  henceforth  to  bear  the  marks  of  idolatry.  His  demand 
for  baptism  was  refused  till  he  should  prove  his  constancy, 
which  he  and  his  household  had  soon  an  opportunity  of  doing. 
And  now  the  fruits  of  this  great  attempt  began  to  multiply. 
Convinced  by  the  testimony  of  his  Brahmin  servants  that  the 
secret  life  of  the  apostle  was  one  of  unceasing  mortification  and 
prayer,  unable  too  to  resist  the  wisdom  that  was  in  him,  fresh 
converts  were  continually  added,  and  always  of  the  highest  class. 
The  Father  himself,  in  describing  the  triumphant  results  of  his 
patient  and  ingenious  charity,  says :  "  Besides  my  manner  of 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  221 

life,  my  food  and  costume,  and  my  using  exclusively  the  services 
of  Brahmins,  there  is  another  circumstance  which  aids  me 
powerfully  in  making  conversions ;  it  is  the  knowledge  which  I 
have  acquired  of  their  most  secret  books.  I  find  it  stated  in 
them  that  their  country  originally  possessed  four  laws,  OT  vedas: 
that  three  of  these  laws  are  those  which  the  Brahmins  still  teach 
at  the  present  day,  and  that  the  fourth  was  a  purely  spiritual  law 
by  virtue  of  which  it  was  possible  to  attain  the  salvation  of  the 
soul."*  He  then  goes  on  to  say  that  this  fourth  veda  was  stated 
to  be  in  great  part  lost,  and  that  no  man  was  sufficiently  holy  or 
learned  to  recover  it ;  while  the  remaining  vedas  acknowledge 
that  they  do  not  suffice  to  confer  spiritual  life.f  "  From  all 
this,"  he  adds,  "  I  take  occasion  to  point  out  to  them,  that  they 
are  living  in  fatal  error,  that  neither  of  the  three  vedas  which 
they  recognize  has  power  to  save  them  ;  that  in  consequence  all 
their  efforts  are  vain,  and  this  I  prove  to  them  by  citing  the  very 
words  of  their  sacred  books.  These  people  have  an  ardent  desire 
of  eternal  happiness,  and  in  order  to  merit  it  devote  themselves 
to  penance,  alms-deeds,  and  the  worship  of  their  idols. ^  I 
protit  by  this  disposition  to  tell  them  that  if  they  wish  to  obtain 
salvation,  they  must  listen  to  my  instructions;  that  I  have  come 
from  a  remote  country  with  the  sole  object  of  bringing  salvation 
to  them,  by  teaching  them  that  spiritual  law  which,  by  the  con- 
fession of  their  Brahmins,  they  have  wholly  lost.  I  thus  adapt 
myself  to  their  opinion,  after  the  example  of  the  Apostle,  who 
preached  to  the  Athenians  the  Unknown  God." 

In  the  midst  of  his  successes  it  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  he 
would  escape  the  trials  and  contradictions  which  the  saints 
have  always  desired  to  encounter,  and  without  which  they  have 
deemed  their  work  imperfect.  The  pagan  Brahmins  presented 
a  petition  to  the  king  against  him  for  refusing  permission  to  his 
disciples  to  wear  ashes,  or  any  other  symbol  of  idolatrous 
worship.  A  strong  excitement  was  created,  and  one  of  his  own 
Brahmin  attendants  abandoned  him  in  fear;  but  requesting 
permission  to  return  shortly  after,  wras  rejected  as  unworthy. 
The  authority  of  the  king,  wrho  visited  him  in  person,  and 
proffered  his  active  protection,  discouraged  his  enemies,  and 
completed  his  triumph.  A  little  later,  in  a  conference  of  eight 
hundred  Brahmins,  assembled  to  judge  his  doctrine,  the  defence 


*  Bertrand,  tome  ii.,  p.  21. 

f  "  We  still  know  tlie  vedas  very  imperfectly."    Mohl,  Rapport,  p.  41.     "  Sir 
William  Jones  penetrated  little  beyond  modern  versions  of  particular  pas- 

T."     Speir's  Life  in  Ancient  India,  ch.  i.,  p.  42. 
.  .  "  La  societe  indoue  est  encore  bien  plus  profondement  religieuse  quo 
les  socictes  Grecque  et  liomaine."    L'l/ido  sous  la  domination  Anglaise,  par  le 
Baron  Barchou  de  Penhoen,  tome  ii.,  liv.  viii.,  p.  145. 


CHAPTER   III. 

of  the  evangelical  law  was  urged  with  so  much  force  by  one 
of  his  converts  that  his  accusers  were  compelled  to  retire  from 
the  assembly,  humbled  and  confounded. 

In  1609,  we  find  him  writing  as  follows,  from  the  city  of 
Madura :  "  Every  day  our  progress  becomes  more  visible,  and 
the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles  less  difficult.  The  persecu- 
tion raised  by  the  Brahmins  has  had  no  other  effect  than  to 
strengthen  our  position  in  this  city.  I  have  just  now  baptized 
eight  persons,  and  am  preparing  the  remaining  catechumens." 
At  this  period  his  day  seems  to  have  been  occupied  as  follows. 
Besides  the  ordinary  duties  of  the  religious  life,  meditation  and 
prayer,  from  which  alone  he  derived  strength  to  pursue  such  a 
career,  he  was  engaged  in  the  study  of  languages,  in  composing 
a  voluminous  catechism,  "  adapted  to  the  genius  and  capacity 
of  the  people,"  in  four  daily  instructions  to  the  Christians  or 
the  catechumens,  and  finally  in  audiences  granted  to  the 
numerous  visitors  who  desired  to  confer  with  him  on  the 
spiritual  law.  "  My  church,"  he  says,  "  can  no  longer  contain 
the  Christians ;  it  has  become  necessary  to  enlarge  it;  but  I  am 
without  money,  and  must  beg  your  charity  to  send  me  some 
assistance."  Shortly  after,  two  of  his  neophytes  were  dispatched 
to  the  college  at  Cochin,  and  their  journey  affords  us  the  first 
opportunity  of  judging  what  sort  of  Christians  were  formed  by 
his  instruction  and  example.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  de'  JSTobili, 
in  the  letter  which  announced  their  approaching  visit,  distinctly 
informed  his  colleagues,  that  they  were  too  soundly  instructed 
to  take  offence  at  the  external  differences  of  caste,  mode  of  life, 
ceremonies,  &c.,  which  they  would  remark  in  the  Christians  to 
whom  they  were  sent.  "  You  need  not  fear  lest  they  should 
be  scandalized,  either  at  the  college  or  in  the  city,  by  these 
differences.  They  are  fully  instructed  in  all  such  matters. 
They  know  that,  in  spite  of  the  extreme  diversity  of  our  usages, 
we  all  serve  the  same  God,  and  practise  the  same  law,  and  that 
in  this  respect  there  is  absolutely  no  difference  amongst  us. 
Far,  then,  from  supposing  that  this  journey  will  produce  an 
injurious  effect  upon  our  newly-founded  church,  I  trust  that  it 
will  prove  most  beneficial  to  it." 

The  anticipations  which  he  thus  expressed  were  fully  realized. 
,It  was  perhaps  a  bold  experiment,  but  the  result  showed  that 
where  the  true  knowledge  of  the  Christian  law  existed,  the 
institution  of  caste  was  a  purely  civil  rite,  and  dwindled  to  a 
mere  question  of  social  etiquette.  The  two  neophytes,  Yisou- 
vasan  and  Maleiappen,  accomplished  their  journey  in  safety, 
and  are  thus  described  by  the  Fathers  at  Cochin,  whose  guests 
they  had  become:  "That  which  touched  us  most  deeply  was  to 
find  them  so  perfectly  instructed  in  the  truths  of  our  holy  reli- 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  223 

gion.  Our  Fathers  took  pleasure  in  proposing  to  them  all  sorts 
of  questions,  even  upon  the  highest  mysteries,  the  Holy  Trinity, 
the  Real  Presence,  &c. ;  to  which  they  replied  with  such  con- 
fidence, promptitude,  and  exactness,  as  filled  us  with  admira- 
tion." Here,  then,  was  an  adequate  and  independent  proof  of 
the  success  which  had  attended  the  labors  of  de'  Nobili,  and  at 
once  the  severest  and  most  conclusive  test  which  could  be  ap- 
plied to  them. 

At  the  request  of  de'  Nobili,  whose  incessant  toils  now  ex- 
ceeded his  force,  Father  Emanuel  Leitan  was  instructed  to  join 
him,  and  from  him  we  have  the  following  account  of  the  mission 
of  Madura,  dated  the  28th  of  September,  1609 :  "  I  wish  I  could 
express  to  you  the  feelings  which  the  contemplation  of  this 
infant  church  has  excited  in  me,  and  the  piety  of  these  angels 
whom  Father  Robert  has  gained  to  God  at  the  price  of  so  many 
labors  and  sacrifices.  I  have  never  seen  Christians  who,  in  so 
short  a  time,  were  so  perfectly  instructed  in  the  things  of  God 
and  of  holy  religion."  He  then  describes  their  manner  of  life 
and  spiritual  wisdom,  and  adds  examples  of  the  fresh  conver- 
sions continually  wrought  by  his  illustrious  colleague.  A  little 
later,  the  apostle  himself  writes  as  follows  to  the  provincial, 
who  had  proposed  to  visit  his  mission:  "Believe  me,  Reverend 
Father,  you  will  taste  here  such  abundant  and  lively  joy  as  you 
can  neither  imagine  nor  I  express.  The  Lord  gathers  into  the 
fold  so  great  a  number  of  new  sheep,  that  in  a  few  days  my 
church  will  no  longer  be  able  to  contain  the  neophytes,  and  we 
must  once  more  think  of  enlarging  it.  During  the  past  month 
I  have  baptized  a  great  number  of  idolaters,  and  if  I  have  not 
admitted  more,  it  is  because  I  am  unable  to  suffice  for  so  great 
labor.  At  all  times,  but  especially  in  the  commencement,  and 
in  this  country,  it  is  of  the  highest  importance  only  to  baptize 
catechumens  after  having  subjected  them  to  a  long  trial,  and 
instructed  them  radically  in  all  the  truths  of  the  faith.  The 
Christians  whom  we  are  now  forming  are  the  nucleus  of  the 
church  which  we  seek  to  establish ;  it  is  by  the  careful  discipline 
of  these  first  elements  that  we  shall  assure  its  fervor,  constancy, 
and  generosity  in  the  time  to  come."* 

Again,  in  the  following  year,  he  writes  these  remarkable 
words  to  the  learned  Antony  Yico,  whom  he  desired  to  associate 
to  his  labors:  "I  have  to  relate  to  you  things  so  extraor- 
dinary, that  if  I  were  writing  to  any  other  than  a  professor  of 
theology,  I  should  think  it  necessary  to  preface  my  account,  by 
way  of  precaution,  with  an  explanatory  statement.  I  should 
warn  him  not  to  be  astonished  at  the  display  of  so  many  sorceries 

*  Bertrand,  tome  ii.,  p.  73. 


224  CHAPTER  III. 

and  witchcrafts,  since  we  are  in  a  land  wherein  the  demon  still 
exercises  a  terrible  and  universal  empire,  and  in  which  this 
visible  action  of  Satan  is  an  e very-day  fact,  recognized  by  the 
whole  Indian  people,  and  forming  the  motive  and  basis  of  a 
large  part  of  their  worship.  I  would  bid  him  also  not  be  amazed 
at  the  wonders  which  God  works  among  our  Christians,  since 
from  such  marvels,  according  to  the  holy  Fathers,  spring  the 
healing  waters  which  must  fertilize  the  precious  plant  of  Chris- 
tianity, newly  sown  in  this  savage  soil.  No  doubt  there  may  be 
particular  cases  in  which  simplicity  exaggerates  natural  facts, 
and  attributes  them  to  supernatural  causes;  but  a  man  must  be 
blind,  or  obstinate  beyond  all  measure,  not  to  recognize  in  this 
country  the  occurrence  of  innumerable  prodigies  of  both  kinds." 
It  is  curious  to  see  a  Presbyterian  author,  two  hundred  and 
forty  years  later,  repeating  the  same  fact,  and  asserting,  on  the 
authority  of  Protestant  missionaries,  that  "in  heathen  countries 
siK^li  as  this,  Satan  still  exercises  a  power  which  was  formerly 
allowed  him,  but  of  which  he  is  now  in  a  great  measure  de- 
prived in  Christian  lands."* 

The  "  prodigious  success,"  as  Laerzio  speaks,  of  the  method 
adopted  by  de'  Nobili  was  now  more  and  more  apparent.  By  a 
severity  of  life  intolerable  to  a  lower  degree  of  charity  than  his, 
he  had  removed  the  first  prejudices  of  the  Indians;  and  by  the 
wisdom  and  eloquence  with  which  he  combated  the  errors  of 
their  religion  and  philosophy,  he  gradually  won  their  assent  to 
the  pure  doctrine  which  he  preached.  "  Praised  be  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,"  had  now  become  the  ordinary  salutation  of  the 
Christians  when  they  met  in  the  streets,  and  yet  the  faith  which 
it  expressed  was  only  in  the  beginning  of  its  triumphs.  It  is 
interesting  to  read  the  description  of  the  great  apostle  by  whose 
labors  it  was  so  rapidly  spreading,  and  of  whom  Father  Antony 
Vico,  a  competent  judge  of  men  and  their  works,  thus  speaks  in 
a  letter  to  Claude  Aquaviva,  General  of  the  Society  of  Jesus : 
"  However  exalted  was  the  opinion  which  I  had  formerly  en- 
tertained of  Father  Robert's  capacity  for  the  work  of  converting 
the  heathen,  it  was  very  far  below  the  reality,  which  I  should 
be  disposed  to  call  the  ideal  perfection  of  a  missionary,  if  I  did 
not  actually  witness  it  with  my  own  eyes.  How  shall  I  describe 
that  consummate  science  which  unfolds  without  effort  the  most 
arduous  questions  of  theology  ?  that  elasticity  of  talent  which, 
while  it  reveals  truth  to  the  comprehension  of  the  ignorant, 
knows  how  to  charm  and  fascinate  the  learned?  that  fertile 
eloquence  which  amazes  us  by  the  opulence  of  its  language,  in 

*  Six  Tears  in  India,  by  Mrs.  Colin  Mackenzie,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  243.  Cf. 
Rambles  and  Recollections  of  an  Indian  Official,  by  Lieut.-Col.  W.  H.  Sleeman, 
vol.  i.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  89. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  225 

spite  of  the  difficulty  and  variety  of  the  idioms  of  these  people?" 
It  is  impossible,  he  adds,  after  a  long  enumeration  of  his  great 
qualities,  not  to  refer  them  "  rather  to  a  special  grace,  an  extra- 
ordinary gift  of  the  Divine  bounty,  than  to  the  natural  talents 
of  Father  Robert."* 

Such  was  the  man  whom  Providence  had  elected  to  combat 
with  superstition  and  error  in  their  most  inveterate  forms,  and 
to  triumph  over  them,  not  by  human  weapons,  but  by  the  power 
of  evangelical  truth  and  charity,  even  in  their  strongholds.  So 
great  was  his  success,  that  some  of  the  most  spiritual  men  of  the 
age  did  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  it  constituted  "the  most 
admirable  missionary  work"  in  the  modern  annals  of  the 
Church.  "The  Mission  of  Madura"  became  a  proverb  through- 
out Christendom ;  and  its  founder  is  said,  though  doubtless  a 
portion  of  the  work  was  accomplished  by  his  colleagues,  to  have 
converted  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  idolaters,  nearly  all 
of  whom  belonged  to  the  caste  of  Brahmins.  Once  more  it  was 
proved,  as  St.  Francis  and  his  companions  had  already  proved, 
that  the  Hindoo  was  not  beyond  the  reach  of  grace;  and  that 
when  he  saw  a  saint,  he  was  able  to  recognize  him.  If  in  later 
times  he  has  seemed  to  reject  Christianity,  it  was  only,  as  we 
shall  see,  because  he  could  no  longer  detect  any  thing  Divine 
in  the  new  order  of  teachers  who  presented  it  to  him. 

And  now  de'  Kobili  prepared  to  quit  Madura, — in  which  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  native  Christians  attest  even  at  this 
day  the  solidity  of  his  work, — and,  attended  by  Indian  cate- 
chists  formed  by  his  own  hand,  resolved  to  penetrate  still  further 
into  the  interior,  and  to  carry  the  message  of  peace  to  nations 
and  tribes  yet  more  remote.  But  at  this  moment  began  that 
great  and  cruel  trial  which  formed  the  crisis  of  his  apostolic 
career,  and  which  it  is  necessary  to  notice  briefly  before  we 
continue  the  history  of  missionary  efforts  in  India. f 

Whoever  has  derived  his  notions  of  the  celebrated  mission  of 
Madura,  and  of  its  illustrious  founder,  from  the  writings  of  Prot- 
estant historians,  can  hardly  fail  to  have  received  unfavor- 
able impressions  of  both.  Bold  and  confident  in  their  general 
assertions,  minute  and  circumstantial  in  details,  reiterated  by 
successive  writers  without  the  variation  of  a  phrase,  they  have 
probably  beguiled  many  an  unwary  and  inexperienced  reader. 
Who  would  suspect  that  charges  so  grave  and  formidable, 
fortified  by  an  almost  ostentatious  array  of  names  and  dates, 

*  Bertrand,  tome  ii.,  p.  138. 

f  A  modern  English  writer  remarks,  in  proof  of  his  influence,  that  in  the 
celebrated  Hindoo  edifices  at  Madura,  the  "  dissimilitude  to  the  general  style 
of  Hindoo  architecture  was  occasioned  by  the  suggestions  of  the  Jesuit  mis- 
sionary, Kobert  de'  Nobili."  Robert's  Hindostan,  vol.  ii.,  p.  69. 

16 


226  CHAPTER   III. 

were  only  the  inventions  of  fretful  and  unforgiving  jealousy  ? 
Yet  the  most  superficial  examination  will  suffice  to  expose  their 
real  character,  and  will  be  found  to  afford  a  new  illustration  of 
the  value  of  Protestant  traditions  against  the  Church,  and  of 
the  mode  in  which  they  are  perpetuated. 

Every  Protestant  writer,  with  two  or  three  exceptions,  has 
ascribed  the  success  of  the  mission  of  Madura,  and  its  wonder- 
ful results,  to  a  guilty  connivance  with  pagan  superstitions. 
This  is  their  explanation  of  apostolic  triumphs  which  they 
neither  believe  nor  understand.  La  Croze,  Geddes,  and  Hough, 
and  other  writers  of  their  class  in  a  long  succession,  luxuriate 
in  language  of  which  we  need  not  offer  even  a  specimen ;  and 
direct  against  de'  Nobili  and  his  successors  charges  of  forgery, 
imposture,  superstition,  idolatry,  and  various  other  crimes  which 
it  is  unnecessary  to  enumerate.  Even  the  respectable  Dr.  Grant, 
who  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  such  writers  as  these,  has 
fallen,  no  doubt  unwittingly,  into  the  same  delusion.* 

It  is  not,  as  perhaps  might  have  been  anticipated,  from  the 
pages  of  Mosheim, — that  vast  arsenal  of  untruths  from  whose 
ample  stores  every  private  venture  of  Protestantism  has  ever 
since  been  fitted  out, — that  the  tale  was  originally  derived. 
JBut  there  is  one  name  which  invariably  occurs  in  the  writings 
referred  to,  one  witness  whom  they  all  quote,  and  to  whom  the 
whole  history  is  to  be  traced.  That  witness  is  "  Father  Nor- 
bert,"  ex-Capuchin,  and  ex-missionary  in  India. 

In  a  work  published  by  this  person  in  lT44r,f  under  circum- 
stances which  shall  be  described  immediately,  all  the  fables 
which  have  since  been  repeated  as  grave  historical  facts  are 
found.  He  is  quoted,  apparently  without  suspicion,  by  Dr. 
Grant  in  his  Bampton  Lectures.  Yet  a  very  little  inquiry,  and 
even  a  reference  to  so  common  a  book  as  the  J3iographie  Uni- 
verselle,  would  have  revealed  to  him  the  real  character  of  a 
witness,  by  whose  help  he  has  not  feared  to  defame  some  of  the 
most  heroic  and  evangelical  men  who  ever  devoted  their  lives  to 
the  service  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  their  fellow-creatures. 

Norbert  was  one  of  those  ordinary  missionaries  who  had 
utterly  failed  to  convert  the  Hindoos  by  the  usual  methods,  and 
who  was  as  incapable  of  imitating  the  terrible  austerities  by 
which  the  Jesuits  prepared  their  success,  as  he  was  of  rejoicing 
in  triumphs  in  which  he  had  no  share.  The  critical  moment 
had  arrived  for  him  which  occurs  once  in  every  man's  life,  and 
upon  which  his  whole  future  destiny  often  depends.  For  a  time 
he  seems  to  have  hesitated,  then  made  his  choice,  and  that  choice 

*  Bampton  Lectures  for  1843. 

f  Memoir es  Historiques  sur  les  Missions  des  Malabar es> 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  227 

was  fatal.  Stung  with  mortal  jealousy,  and  yielding  to  the 
suggestions  of  a  malice  which  amounted  almost  to  frenzy,  he 
attacked  the  Jesuits  with  fury  even  from  the  pulpit.  The 
civil  power  was  forced  to  interfere,  and  Dupleix,  the  governor 
of  Pondicherry,  though  he  had  been  his  friend,  put  him  on 
board  ship,  and  sent  him  to  America.  Here  he  spent  two  years, 
"  less  occupied  in  the  work  of  the  missions  than  in  planning 
schemes  to  revenge  himself  on  the  Jesuits."  The  publication 
of  the  mendacious  work  which  he  had  prepared  on  the  Malabar 
mission,  and  in  which  he  treated  the  Society  of  Jesus  as  a  band 
of  scheming  malefactors,  was  prohibited  by  authority,  but  he 
quitted  Rome  and  printed  it  secretly.  Condemned  by  his  own 
Order,  though  he  affected  to  vindicate  it  from  the  injuries  of 
the  Jesuits,  he  fled  to  Holland  and  thence  to  England,  in  both 
which  countries  he  found  congenial  spirits.  In  the  latter  he 
established  first  a  candle  and  afterwards  a  carpet  manufactory, 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland.  Thence  he 
wandered  into  Germany,  .and  subsequently,  having  obtained 
his  secularization,  and  put  off  the  religious  habit  which  he  had 
defiled,  he  went  to  Portugal.  Here  remorse  seems  to  have 
overtaken  him,  and  he  was  permitted,  by  an  excess  of  charity, 
to  assume  once  more  the  habit  of  a  Capuchin,  which  he  a 
second  time  laid  aside.  Finally,  after  having  attempted  to  de- 
ceive even  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  he  died,  in  a  wretched  con- 
dition, in  an  obscure  village  of  France.* 

Such  was  the  witness  upon  whose  statements  all  the  Prot- 
estant histories  of  Christianity  in  Malabar  are  solely  founded. 
He  will  continue,  we  may  be  sure,  to  be  eagerly  quoted  by  the 
same  class  of  writers.  The  latest  of  them,  in  a  work  as  super- 
ficial and  unlearned  as  it  is  coarse  and  presumptuous,  surpass- 
ing all  his  predecessors  in  violence  of  language,  still  clings  to 
this  discredited  witness;  and  despising  the  judgment  of  Chris- 
tendom, as  well  as  that  more  awful  judgment  of  which  it  is 
only  the  precursor,  is  not  ashamed  to  speak  of  "  the  impiety  of 
the  Jesuits,"  to  declare  that  they  went  to  India  "  with  a  lie  in 
their  right  hands,"  that  "  the  Christianity  of  Madura  was  un- 
disguised idolatry,"  and  that  its  apostles  "  relied  on  an  unin- 
telligible preaching,  and  an -equally  unintelligible  ceremony  of 
baptism."! 

They  were  "  liars,"  according  to  this  person,  because  they 
called  themselves  u  penitents,"  though  their  whole  life  was  one 
long  crucifixion ;  they  were  "  liars,"  because  they  announced 
themselves  as  "  rajahs,"  though  many  of  them  belonged  to  the 

*  Biographic  Universette,  in  voc. 

t  Christianity  in  India,  by  J.  W.  Kaye,  ch.  i.,  p.  33 ;  ch.  ii.,  p.  73  (1859). 


CHAPTER  III. 

most  illustrious  families  of  Europe ;  and  they  were  "  idolaters," 
though  they  taught  their  disciples  to  sacrifice  life  itself,  and 
constantly  set  them  the  example,  rather  than  countenance  by 
word  or  look  the  abominations  of  the  Gentiles. 

There  are  some  forms  of  guilt  which  no  human  enactment 
has  defined,  and  no  earthly  tribunal  is  competent  to  avenge. 
We  will  not  seek  to  pass  sentence  on  such  an  accuser.  We 
have  no  court  in  which  to  try  him ;  but  we  shall  meet  him 
again  before  the  just  Judge. 

It  was  the  Lutheran  La  Croze  who  had  encouraged  Mr.  Kaye 
to  speak  after  this  fashion,  by  asserting,  long  before,  that "  the 
Jesuits  regarded  the  mission  of  Madura  as  a  very  lucrative 
aft'air !"  And  as  if  even  this  were  too  weak  to  satisfy  his  re- 
sentment, he  added,  that  lust  of  money  was  the  characteristic, 
not  of  the  Jesuits  only,  but  of  Catholic  missionaries  generally.* 

It  was  not  so  that  our  Lord  had  spoken  of  them.  "  You 
shall  be  hated  of  all  men  for  my  Name's  sake,"  was  His  prom- 
ise, and  abundantly  has  it  been  fulfilled.  Neither  their  bitter 
austerities  and  mortifications, — nor  their  sordid  food  and  lodg- 
ing, which  a  beggar  would  have  disdained  to  share, — nor  their 
angelic  patience  and  charity, — nor  the  supernatural  sanctity  of 
their  lives, — nor  the  calm  heroic  dignity  of  their  deaths,  could 
avert  the  imprecations  of  men  of  whom  it  has  been  well  said, 
"  they  believe  neither  in  truth  nor  in  virtue,  "f  It  is  in  lan- 
guage against  which  heaven  and  earth  silently  protest  that 
they  have  described  that  noble  army  of  evangelists,  every  one 
of  whom  might  have  said  with  St.  Paul,  "  I  fill  up  in  my  flesh 
those  things  that  are  wanting  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ."' 
The  mouth  which  could  revile  such  as  these,  and  charge  them 
with  fraud,  covetousness,  and  idolatry,  need  not  fear — it  would 
scarcely  be  a  greater  crime — to  call  St.  John  unchaste,  or  St. 
Paul  a  usurer. 

But  we  owe  no  answer  to  men  who  have  forfeited  by  their 
excesses  all  claims  to  respect.  It  may  be  said,  however,  in 
defence  of  the  better  sort  of  Protestant  writers,  that  the  fables 
by  which  they  have  been  not  unwillingly  deceived  were 
successful,  for  a  moment,  in  their  influence  upon  men  of 
another  and  a  higher  order.  The  great  Bellarmine  himself,  the 
near  kinsman  of  de'  Nobili,  was  for  a  time  disturbed  by  the 
specious  fraud,  and  wrote  to  demand  an  explanation  of  the 
complicity  with  heathen  customs  attributed  to  his  nephew. 
The  explanation  came,  and,  as  Norbert  bitterly  confesses,  "  he 
changed  his  opinion.";):  In  1615,  the  cardinal,  now  perfectly 

*  Histoire  du  Christianisme  des  Indes,  tome  i.,  liv.  i.,  p.  83. 

\  Bertrand. 

j  Memoires  Historique*,  &c.,  tome  i.,  liv.  i.,  p.  17. 


MISSIONS   IN    INDIA. 

informed,  wrote  once  more  to  console  the  apostle  in  his  trials, 
and  to  exhort  him  to  "  continue  in  his  noble  and  glorious 
career."  In  Malabar  itself,  where  all  the  facts  were  known, 
the  Archbishop  of  Goa,  Primate  of  the  Indies, — though  he  had 
actually  presided  at  the  Synod  of  Diamper  which  condemned 
the  use  of  the  Brahminieal  cord, — solemnly  approved  the  con- 
duct of  de'  Nobili ;  whilst  his  diocesan,  the  Archbishop  ot 
Cranganore,  added  to  his  approval  these  remarkable  words : 
u  Would  to  God  that  Father  Robert  had  more  imitators  of  his 
virtue  than  impugners  of  his  conduct !  For  my  part,  I  would 
willingly  wear  six  hundred  Brahminical  cords,  if  by  doing  so  I 
could  effect  the  salvation  of  a  single  soul."  The  prelate  knew, 
perhaps,  that  it  was  only  an  emblem  of  rank,  and  that  the 
Brahmin,  in  investing  his  son  with  it,  said,  u  ego  te  nolrilem  hac 
linea  facio."*  In  1623,  by  a  Bull  dated  the  31st  of  January, 
Gregory  XV.  gave  his  supreme  sanction  to  the  method  pursued 
by  de'  .Nobili ;  and,  in  1707,  Clement  XL  repeated  the  same 
judgment.  Clement  XII.  indeed  ordered  them  to  abolish  the 
distinction!  of  castes;  but  as  this  decision,  founded  upon  an 
extreme  view  of  the  theory  of  caste,  was  found  to  be  absolutely 
fatal  to  conversions,  Benedict  XI V.,  by  his  Bull  of  the  12rh  of 
September,  1744,  not  only  applauded  the  conduct  of  the  Jesuits, 
but  authorized  them  to  have  two  classes  of  missionaries,  one  for 
the  nobles,  and  another  for  the  pariahs.  The  decision  was 
received  with  joy  in  India,  and  the  Fathers  contended  with  one 
another  who  should  have  the  lower  calling.  Among  the  first 
who  devoted  themselves  for  life  to  the  pariahs  were  d'Orbigny, 
Barbosa,  Da  Costa,  Pimentel,  d'Almeida,  and  others,  who  forgot 
their  own  nobility  to  become  the  servants  of  slaves  and  outcasts. 

Such  was  the  termination  of  the  celebrated  controversy  about 
the  mission  of  Madura,  which  in  its  first  stage  lasted  ten  years, 
and  out  of  which  its  founder  came  forth  victorious.  "  His 
whole  conduct,"  says  an  eminent  Protestant  writer,  rebuking 
by  his  solitary  protest  the  libels  of  his  co-religionists,  "  was  so 
admirably  adapted  to  its  end,  that  he  was  soon  surrounded  by 
crowds  of  converts ;  and  although  his  method  of  instruction  at 
first  gave  great  offence  and  scandal  at  home,  it  seemed  to  be  the 
only  one  fitted  to  advance  the  cause?  \ 

But  his  work,  though  justified  by  the  unanimous  voice  of  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities,  constantly  approving  during  one 
hundred  and  thirty  years,  had  received  during  the  first  conflict 
a  serious  check.  The  fruits  of  that  work  remain  indeed,  as  we 
shall  see  hereafter,  to  this  day ;  but  the  conversion  of  the 

*  Jouven£y,  lib.  xviii.,  p.  508. 

f  "Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes,  vol.  ii.,  book  vii.,  p.  93 ;  ed.  Austin. 


CHAPTER   III. 

peculiar  class  to  which  he  had  devoted  himself  with  such  im- 
mense success  was  suspended  and  henceforth  impeded.  "  The 
general  movement  which  had  been  excited  amongst  the  Brah- 
mins, from  1606  to  1610,  was  arrested,  and  was  only  very  im- 
perfectly revived  at  a  later  period.  So  true  it  is  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  recover  an  opportunity  once  lost  !"*  Had  this  lament- 
able discussion,  which  owed  its  origin  to  jealousy  rather  than 
to  a  just  susceptibility,  never  arisen,  it  is  impossible  to  say  how 
far  the  success  of  de'  Nobili  would  have  been  carried,  or  what 
would  have  been  the  condition  of  India  at  the  present  day. 

It  is  time  to  close  our  account  of  this  great  apostle,  who, 
during  forty-five  years,  led  such  a  life  as  even  the  solitaries  of 
the  Thebaid  might  have  feared  to  imitate ;  but  who  labored 
with  such  abundant  fruit  that,  as  an  English  writer  remarks, 
"he  lived  to  see,  as  the  reward  of  forty-five  years  of  missionary 
toil,  a  church  in  every  town  of  importance  in  the  south  of  India"  \ 

Visited  with  blindness  in  his  old  age,  he  used  the  affliction  as 
a  means  of  drawing  still  nearer  to  God  by  perpetual  meditation 
and  prayer.  The  city  of  Meliapore,  near  which  he  had  long 
lived  in  a  humble  cabin,  was  sacked  and  destroyed  towards  the 
close  of  his  career,  and  the  very  stones  of  which  it  was  built 
transported  to  a  distance;  "and  then  men  beheld  with  astonish- 
ment the  hut  of  Father  de'  Nobili  standing  unhurt  by  the  side 
of  the  ruins.":):  But  when  this  happened  he  had  already  gone 
to  receive  his  crown. 

MISSIONS   IN   CENTRAL    INDIA. 

Almost  identical  in  date,  as  well  as  in  their  general  character, 
were  the  "  not  less  remarkable  labors,"  as  Ranke  notices,  after 
Jouvency,  "  of  the  missionaries  at  the  court  of  the  emperor 
Akbar."  At  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in  the  year 
1599,  "  Christmas-eve  was  celebrated  with  the  greatest  solemnity 
at  Lahore  j  numerous  catechumens,  with  palm-branches  in  their 
hands,  went  in  procession  to  the  churches  and  received  baptism. 
.  .  .  .  In  the  year  1610,  three  princes  of  the  blood-royal 
solemnly  received  baptism"  at  the  hands  of  Father  Geronimo 
Xavier,  a  nephew  of  St.  Francis.§  Akbar  himself,  as  a  British 
historian  notices,  reverenced  "  the  images  of  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  Yirgin  when  they  were  shown  to  him  by  the  missionaries,"! 
and  solicited  permission,  reluctantly  accorded,  to  retain  them  in 
his  palace  for  a  single  night.  The  nobles  of  his  court,  "  and  even 

*  Histoire  de  la  Mission  du  Madure,  tome  ii.,  p.  197. 

f  living's  Theory  of  Caste,  ch.  v.,  p.  128. 

I  Bertrand,  tome  iii.,  p.  114. 

§  Ranke,  p.  94. 

||  Elphinstone's  History  of  India,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  323. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  231 

Mussulman  doctors,  in  spite  of  their  general  aversion  for  images," 
displayed  the  same  interest,  and  for  twenty  successive  days  the 
church  of  the  Jesuits  in  Lahore  was  thronged  from  morning  till 
night  by  audiences  which  numbered  from  three  to  four  thousand. 
So  universal  was  the  movement,  that  the  Persian  ambassador  to 
the  court  of  the  Mogul  brought  his  children  to  be  baptized,  and 
the  Fathers  "  went  about  their  functions  in  Lahore  as  if  in  the 
middle  of  Rome."41  For  a  time  it  appeared  as  if  Central  India 
was  about  to  be  subjugated,  in  its  turn,  by  the  faith.  In  the  very 
stronghold  of  Eastern  superstition  and  idolatry,  the  missionaries 
of  the  Cross  contended  with  the  enemy  of  mankind,  and  seemed 
on  the  point  of  wresting  his  kingdom  from  him.  The  piety  and 
constancy  of  their  disciples,  numbering  already  many  thousands, 
attracted  continually  the  homage  of  the  heathen,  and  Protestant 
writers  have  admitted  that  at  this  moment  the  whole  fabric  of 
oriental  demonology  was  menaced  with  ruin,  from  which  it  was 
only  saved  by  political  events  which  the  missionaries  could 
neither  anticipate  nor  avert.  The  triumphs  of  the  Gospel  were 
not,  then,  limited  to  Western  and  Southern  India,  to  which, 
however,  we  will  now  return,  for  the  sake  of  tracing  the  pro- 
cess by  which  they  were  gradually  accomplished. 

THE   BLESSED   JOHN   DE   BKITTO. 

The  next  great  name  which  occurs  in  the  roll  of  Indian  evan- 
gelists is  that  of  the  Blessed  John  de  Britto.  The  son  of  a  viceroy 
of  Brazil,  and  the  intimate  friend  of  John  IY.  of  Portugal,  the 
apostle  whose  labors  we  are  now  to  describe,  and  who  was  born 
in  1647,  was  educated  at  court  as  the  companion  of  the  royal 
princes.  At  the  age  of  fourteen,  on  his  recovery  from  a  danger- 
ous illness,  during  which  he  had  invoked  the  intercession  of 
St.  Francis  Xavier,  he  embraced  the  religious  life  and  assumed 
the  habit,  though  still  performing  his  functions  as  one  of  the 
royal  pages.  With  infinite  difficulty  he  finally  obtained  the 
king's  permission  to  retire  from  court,  and  announced  to  his 
mother  in  these  words  his  new  calling:  "It  is  time  that  I 
should  quit  you,  my  mother,  to  follow  Jesus  Christ."  When  the 
humility  and  abnegation  of  one  so  highly  born  and  so  delicate- 
ly nurtured  excited  the  admiration  of  his  new  associates,  he  was 
wont  to  say^:  "  I  have  only  known  true  nobility  since  I  became 
the  companion  of  the  friends  and  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ."  In 
1673  he  was  ordained  priest,  and  in  the  same  year  embarked 
for  India,  where  he  ardently  hoped,  and  was  destined  by  Provi- 
dence to  tirid  the  crown  of  martyrdom. "f 

*  Hist.  Sec.  Jesu.  pars  vta.;  auctore  Josepho  Juvencio,  lib.  xviii.,  pp.  451-464. 
f  Hutoire  du  Bienheureux  Jean  de  Britto,  par  le  R.  P.  Prat  (1853). 


232  CHAPTER  III. 

He  was  not  long  in  discovering  the  true  nature  of  the  mission 
to  which  he  had  now  dedicated  himself.  Like  his  predecessors, 
he  understood  that  the  Indian  could  only  be  won  to  God  by 
apostles  who  had  courage  to  lead  a  supernatural  life.  "  We 
would  rather  descend  into  hell,"  was  their  common  remark, 
"than  be  the  disciples  of  Pranguis"  The  austerities  and  the 
virtues  of  de'  ISfobili  were  imitated  by  de  Britto,  and,  if  possible, 
with  greater  success.  On  Easter-day,  1678,  he  admitted  to 
baptism  three  hundred  catechumens  at  once,  every  one  of  whom 
had  been  long  and  diligently  prepared  by  himself.  From  that 
hour  his  converts  became  so  numerous,  that  all  the  witnesses 
who  were  examined  during  the  process  of  his  beatification  de- 
clared themselves  unable  to  reckon  them.  When,  for  the  first 
time,  he  was  condemned  to  death  by  the  governor  of  Tanjore,  the 
Christians  of  that  province  declared  that  they  would  quit  the 
kingdom  en  masse  unless  the  edict  was  repealed ;  u  for  fear  of 
depopulating  the  territory,"  their  petition  was  granted.  More 
than  eighteen  hundred  of  them  subsequently  received  Holy 
Communion  at  his  hands  on  the  same  day. 

Of  all  the  Indian  missionaries  none  seems  to  have  been  more 
openly  favored  with  Divine  succors,  to  which,  with  character- 
istic modesty,  he  thus  alludes :  "These  prodigious  favors  of  God 
are  so  frequent  that  our  Christians  have  become  accustomed  to 
them."  But  it  is  not  of  himself  that  he  writes.  "  A  neophyte 
named  John  has  become  celebrated  by  the  instantaneous  cures 
which  he  effects  by  reciting  the  Creed  over  the  sick.  The  pagans 
themselves  eagerly  apply  to  him,  or  recommend  themselves  to 
him  in  their  infirmities."  The  examples  which  he  notices  of 
energumens  being  delivered  from  possession  at  the  moment  of 
baptism  occur  at  almost  every  page.  The  celebrated  Father 
Bouchet  attests  the  same  fact.  "  It  has  been  my  happiness,"  he 
says,  "  to  consecrate  the  greater  part  of  my  life  to  preaching  the 
Gospel  to  the  idolaters  of  India  ;  and  I  have  had  also  the  con- 
solation to  witness  this  fact,  that  some  of  the  prodigies  which 
contributed  to  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  in  the  time  of  the 
primitive  Church  are  daily  renewed  among  the  churches  which 
we  have  formed  in  the  midst  of  this  pagan  land."*  Of  many 
of  them,  he  adds,  Englishmen  and  Protestants  were  witnesses. 
But  to  return  to  de  Britto. 

Amongst  the  labors  which  filled  up  his  daily  life  were  con- 
stant disputations  with  the  most  learned  of  the  Brahmins, 
whom  he  refuted  out  of  their  own  books,  until  at  length,  con- 
founded by  perpetual  defeats,  they  no  longer  dared  to  accept 
his  challenge,  and  declined  all  public  controversy.  And  now 
the  power  which  God  gave  him  was  displayed  more  and  more 
*  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  xi ,  p.  43. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  233 

mightily.  In  1686,  from  the  5th  of  May  to  the  17th  of  July, 
he  baptized  two  thousand  and  seventy  catechumens.*  Like 
St.  Paul,  he  suffered  stripes,  bonds,  imprisonment,  hunger,  and 
thirst ;  he  wandered  from  place  to  place  without  a  refuge ;  and 
though  naturally  of  a  frail  and  delicate  constitution,  survived 
trials  under  which  many  of  his  brethren  speedily  sank.  At 
Mangalore  he  was  lowered  into  a  tank  by  a  pulley,  and  plunged 
and  replunged  into  the  water,  till  life  was  nearly  extinct ;  while 
his  catechists  and  neophytes,  after  sharing  the  same  torture, 
were  subsequently  scourged,  and  though  some  died  under  the 
blows,  only  one  sought  escape  in  apostasy.  Shut  up  with  him 
in  prison,  they  found  strength  and  consolation  in  his  fervent 
exhortations,  and  especially  in  his  continual  discourses  upon  the 
Passion  of  our  Lord.  After  an  incarceration  of  eleven  days,  he 
was  brought  forth,  and  commanded  to  invoke  the  name  of  Siva. 
His  only  answer  was  to  repeat  with  tender  devotion  that  of 
Jesus.  The  enraged  governor  struck  him  on  the  face  with  his 
own  hand,  when  he  calmly  turned  to  him  his  other  cheek.  On 
the  following  day,  he  was  exposed  naked  on  a  rock,  under  the 
burning  rays  of  the  Indian  sun,  and  then  beaten  with  rods 
and  whips  till  pieces  of  his  flesh  were  torn  away.  One  of  his 
catechists,  at  a  later  period  the  witness  of  his  martyrdom, 
received  such  violent  blows  on  the  head,  that  one  of  his  eyes 
was  forced  out,  and  hung  down  upon  his  cheek.  "Tell  his 
master,"  cried  the  governor,  with  grim  pleasantry,  "  to  replace 
it  for  him."  To  confound  the  scoffing  persecutor,  this  power 
was  given  him ;  and  when  de  Britto  had  made  the  sign  of  the 
Cross,  the  eye  was  immediately  restored  to  its  place.  The 
governor  ordered  a  book  to  be  brought,  and  when  the  miracle 
was  proved  by  the  confessor  reading  out  of  it,  the  impenitent 
barbarian,  who  "  would  not  believe  though  one  rose  from  the 
dead,"  angrily  exclaimed,  "He  has  done  it  by  magic!"  His 
chief  secretary,  however,  was  converted,  and  confessed  "that 
a  religion  which  could  produce  such  proofs  of  its  origin  must 
certainly  come  from  heaven. "f  The  persecutor  himself,  by  one 
of  those  judgments  of  which  the  history  of  missions  supplies  so 
many  examples,  was  subsequently  impaled  alive  by  one  of  the 
native  princes. 

.  In  1688,  de  Britto  was  sent  to  Portugal  on  the  affairs  of  the 
mission,  where  he  was  embraced  as  a  brother  by  Pedro  II.,  and 
welcomed  with  public  veneration,  the  greatest  nobles  thronging 
round  him  to  kiss  the  marks  of  the  wounds  which  he  had 
received  in  the  service  of  Christ.  In  vain  the  king  attempted 
to  retain  him,  beseeching  him  to  undertake  the  education  of  his 

*  Prat,  liv.  iii.,  p.  199. 
f  Prat,  liv.  iii.,  p.  230. 


234  CHAPTER   III. 

heir,  and  offering  to  send  out  many  missionaries  in  his  place. 
"The  Indian  mission,"  he  answered,  "was  that  in  which  a 
man  might  hope  to  do  most  for  the  glory  of  God,  and  suffer  most 
for  His  sake;"  and  it  was  only  by  threatening  the  pious  monarch 
with  the  Divine  displeasure  that  he  at  length  extorted  a  reluc- 
tant consent, — though  even  then  the  king  tried  to  thwart  him, 
by  secretly  giving  orders  to  remove  all  vessels  out  of  the  Tagus, 
on  the  day  on  which  he  was  to  embark,  so  that  he  had  to  row 
many  miles  in  an  open  boat  to  overtake  his  ship,  which  had 
already  started.  On  the  3d  of  November,  1689,  he  was  once 
more  in  India. 

In  fifteen  months  after  his  return,  filled  with  new  strength 
from  above,  he  had  already  baptized  eight  thousand  infidels; 
and  when  a  prince  of  the  country,  of  great  power  and  influence, 
being  miraculously  healed,  besought  him  to  confer  the  same 
sacrament  upon  him,  "  You  know  not,"  was  the  reply,  "  what 
purity  of  life  the  profession  of  Christianity  requires.  I  should 
be  guilty  before  God  if  I  gave  you  the  grace  of  baptism  before 
having  sufficiently  instructed  and  disposed  you  to  receive  that 
sacrament."  Being  required,  as  a  first  condition,  to  put  away 
all  his  wives  but  one,  he  immediately  complied  ;  and  this  was 
the  event  which  ultimately  led  to  the  martyrdom  of  de  Britto. 
An  English  writer  has  said,  in  the  energetic  language  of  his 
period,  that  "a  lewd  woman  danced  off  the  head  of  St.  John  the 
Baptist."  A  similar  fate  was  reserved  for  the  Venerable  John 
de  Britto.  One  of  the  prince's  discarded  wives  was  a  niece  of 
the  king,  to  whom  she  appealed  for  vengeance,  and  by  whose 
order  de  Britto  was  seized,  on  the  8th  of  January,  1693.  As  he 
was  dragged  to-  execution,  the  blood  flowed  from  the  wounds 
which  had  already  been  inflicted  on  him,  and  lest  he  should 
expire  too  soon,  they  placed  him  on  a  horse.  From  a  similar 
motive,  that  he  might  have  a  keener  sense  of  suffering,  they 
postponed  his  death  ;  and  being  once  more  consigned  to  prison, 
he  wrote  to  his  brethren  a  letter  which  contains  these  words : 
"I  am  at  present  in  prison,  awaiting  the  death  which  I  am 
about  to  suffer  for  my  God.  It  was  the  hope  of  attaining  this 
happiness  which  constrained  me  a  second  time  to  visit  India." 
On  the  3d  of  February,  the  day  before  his  martyrdom,  he 
confessed  to  Father  da  Costa,  "  I  have  this  year  baptized  four 
thousand  pagans."  He  had  long  before  announced  to  his 
disciples  his  death,  and  the  precise  manner  of  it ;  arid  even  the 
executioners,  whom  fear  and  awe  almost  disabled  fur  their  task, 
confessed  that  "he  went  to  the  stake  like  a  conqueror  in  a 
triumphal  procession."  When  the  Archbishop  of  Cranganore 
announced  his  martyrdom  to  the  Pope,  he  said  :  "  The  Gentiles 
themselves  proclaim  his  glory,  and  affirm  that  they  saw,  during 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  235 

three  nights  in  succession,  rays  of  brilliant  light  hovering  over 
the  stake  from  which  he  was  suspended."* 

Such,  in  his  turn,  was  this  great  servant  of  God  and  of  the 
Churcb.  Ten  years  were  occupied  in  collecting  on  the  spot, 
from  innumerable  witnesses,  the  facts  recorded  in  the  Acts  of 
his  Beatification.  The  catechist  Mariadaghen,  his  constant  com- 
panion, deposed  on  oath,  that  in  the  plains  of  Valetirel  he  bap- 
tized in  a  single  day  three  thousand  pagans.  Another  gave  evi- 
dence that  in  ten  days,  with  scanty  assistance  from  others,  he 
conferred  the  same  sacrament  on  twelve  thousand  catechumens, 
so  that  they  were  obliged,  as  in  the  case  of  St.  Francis  Xavier, 
to  support  his  Avearied  arms.  A  third  made  his  deposition  in 
these  terms:  "I  know  that  in  his  second  expedition  to  Marava, 
where  I  lived  many  years,'' — and  in  the  forests  of  which  country 
the  saint  had  caused  numerous  chapels  to  be  erected, — "  the 
venerable  Father  converted  many  thousand  Gentiles,  sometimes 
baptizing  five  hundred  and  sometimes  a  thousand  catechumens 
a  day."  Father  Bouchet,  who  himself  converted  thirty  thou- 
sand idolaters,  declared :  "  I  know  no  missionary  who  has  con- 
verted so  many  souls  to  God."  Even  the  Dutch  Protestants, 
forgetting  for  a  moment  their  hatred  and  jealousy,  celebrated  his 
glorious  death ;  and  the  Calvinist  John  JXoot,  who  was  the  com- 
missary of  Holland  on  the  coast  of  Coromandel,  in  a  letter  dated 
the  3d  of  December,  1693, — only  ten  months  after  his  martyr- 
dom,— affirmed  as  follows :  "  His  body  continued  fresh  and 
without  the  least  smell,  though  in  this  country,  in  consequence 
of  the  extreme  heat,  corpses  exhale  almost  immediately  a  pes- 
tilential odor.  In  truth,  the  executioners  themselves  were  so 
greatly  amazed,  that  they  said  to  the  Christians  converted  by 
him  whom  they  had  just  slain,  'Truly  this  was  a  man  of  God ;' 
and  the  neophytes  answered  them, — 'It  was  this  man  who  made 
known  to  us  the  God  by  whom  we  were  created.'  In  saying 
this,  they  offered  their  own  heads,  to  suffer  martyrdom  as  their 
master  had  done ;  but  the  pagans,  far  from  consenting  to  their 
demand,  expressed  deep  regret  for  what  they  had  just  done. 
Furthermore,  the  whole  of  that  country  has  embraced  the  law 
of  Christ  "\  Such  were  the  men  whom  God  raised  up  to  de- 
clare His  Name  in  India,  and  such,  even  by  the  testimony  of 
Protestants,  were  the  fruits  of  their  work. 


LAYNEZ,    BORGHESE,    AND   THEIR   COMPANIONS. 

It  would  be  impossible,  without  extending  this  compilation  to 
inconvenient  dimensions,  to  pursue  with  equally  minute  detail 

*  Prat,  liv.  vi.,  p.  409.  f  Prat,  liv.  iii.,  p.  367. 


236  CHAPTER    III. 

V 

the  history  of  all  the  companions  and  successors  of  de'  ISTobili  and 
de  Britto,  yet  each  of  them  might  well  claim  a  separate  biog- 
raphy, and  deserves  from  us  what  he  gained  from  his  contem- 
poraries, grateful  respect  and  loving  veneration.  "  They  were 
giants,"  as  one  who  lived  at  a  later  and  less  glorious  epoch  of 
Indian  missions  has  said,*  and  they  triumphed  in  their  day,  be- 
cause neither  the  world  nor  the  devil  could  resist  the  might  that 
was  in  them.  Possessing,  for  the  most  part,  the  rarest  mental 
endowments,  so  that  if  they  had  aimed  only  at  human  honors 
they  would  scarcely  have  encountered  a  rival  in  their  path  ; 
versed  in  all  the  learning  of  their  age,  and  conspicuous  even  in 
that  great  society  which  attracted  to  itself  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury the  noblest  minds  of  every  country  in  Europe ;  they  had 
acquired,  in  addition  to  their  natural  gifts,  such  a  measure  of 
Divine  grace  and  wisdom,  such  perfection  of  evangelical  virtue, 
that  the  powers  of  darkness  fled  away  from  before  their  face,  and 
the  Cross  of  Christ,  wherever  they  lifted  it  up,  broke  in  pieces  the 
idols  of  the  Gen  tiles.  "I  confess,  says  one  who  did  not  visit  India 
till  nearly  the  last  of  these  apostles  had  been  banished  from  it, 
"  that  I  have  criticised  the  Jesuits  of  Hindostan  with  critical,  per- 
haps with  malignant  temper.  I  distrusted  before  I  knew  them ; 
but  their  virtue  has  conquered  and  annihilated  my  prejudices.  I 
have  discovered  in  them  men  who  knew  how  to  ally  the  most 
sublime  degrees  of  prayer  with  the  most  energetic  and  absorbing 
activity  of  life;  men  wholly  detached  from  earthly  things,  and 
whose  mortifications  would  have  appalled  the  most  fervent  ancho- 
rites; men  who  refused  themselves  even  indispensable  necessaries, 
while  they  ceased  not  to  exhaust  their  strength  in  the  arduous 
toils  of  the  apostolate ;  patient  in  all  their  afflictions,  humble  in 
spite  of  the  esteem  which  they  attracted,  and  the  success  which 
accompanied  their  ministry ;  burning  with  a  zeal  which,  while 
it  never  knew  relaxation,  was  always  wise  and  always  prudent. 
Never  were  they  so  cheerful  and  contented  as  when,  after  having 
consumed  the  whole  day  in  preaching,  in  hearing  confessions,  or 
in  the  discussion  and  decision  of  the  most  delicate  and  difficult 
questions,  they  were  suddenly  summoned  from  their  sleep  to 
carry  the  succors  of  religion  to  some  dying  man,  perhaps  at  a 
distance  of  several  miles.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  it,  they  were 
workmen  whom  no  toil  could  confuse,  no  labor  exhaust.  But 
if  I  give  this  testimony  with  pleasure,  I  speak  also  under  the 
constraint  of  necessity ;  for  all  India  would  lift  up  its  voice,  if  I 
used  any  other  language,  and  tax  me  with  imposture."f 

When  we  have  added  a  few  words  upon  some  at  least  of  their 
number, — since  we  may  not  stay  to  offer  to  all  our  respectful 

*  Abb6  Dubois. 

f  Perrin,  Voyage  dans  VIndostan,  tome  ii.,  p.  166. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  237 

homage, — we  may  proceed  to  estimate  the  final  results  of  their 
labors. 

Who  in  that  company  of  evangelists  was  nobler  than  Francis 
Laynez,  a  hundred  times  confessor,  and  all  but  martyr  ?  He  was 
accustomed  to  say,  in  allusion  to  his  own  immense  labors,  that 
"  there  was  a  time  for  sowing  and  a  time  for  reaping ;"  and  he 
would  often  refer  to  the  early  history  of  the  mission  of  Madura, 
where  some  years  elapsed  without  their  making  a  single  convert. 
He  loved  solid  foundations,  and  was  no  hasty  builder ;  yet  in 
1700  he  baptized  five  thousand  catechumens  with  his  own  hand, 
every  one  of  whom  had  been  instructed  by  himself.*  Again,  in 
the  following  year,  partly  through  the  persuasive  converse  and 
example  of  these  first  converts,  he  admitted  to  the  same  sacra- 
ment>  between  the  months  of  January  and  September,  four  thou- 
sand seven  hundred  and  twenty-five  pagans !  During  thirty-two 
years  he  witnessed  for  Christ  through  all  the  trials  and  sufferings 
which  can  befall  the  disciple  of  a  Crucified  Master.  Once  he 
was  mangled  in  every  part  of  his  body  by  the  teeth  of  a  crew  of 
pagan  fanatics,  who  rushed  upon  him  like  wild  beasts,  and  would 
have  torn  him  to  pieces.  When  in  1704  they  sent  him  to  Home, 
to  answer  the  calumnies  which  the  Evil  One  had  again  spread 
abroad  against  himself  and  his  brethren,  he  had  already  con- 
verted forty  thousand  souls.  It  was  to  Clement  XI.  that  his 
celebrated  memorial,  Defensio  Indicarum  Missionum,  was  pre- 
sented. By  the  command  of  the  Pontiff  it  was  printed  at  Rome, 
in  1707,  and  won  for  its  author  the  uncoveted  dignity  of  the 
episcopate,  from  which  he  vainly  entreated  to  be  relieved.  Con- 
secrated in  1708  at  Lisbon,  he  returned  immediately  to  India, 
where  he  continued  the  same  almost  incredible  austerities,  and 
persevered  in  the  same  patient  toil,  as  if  he  had  been  the  humblest 
of  the  flock  committed  by  the  Supreme  Pastor  to  his  oversight. 
In  .1712,  he  visited  Calcutta,  where  he  was  received  with  the 
highest  honors  by  the  English  governor  ;  and  in  1715  he  died, 
after  an  apostolate  of  more  than  thirty  years,  during  which  he 
had  converted  to  God  upwards  of  fifty  thousand  idolaters. 

We  shall  presently,  when  we  come  to  speak  of  the  agents  of 
another  creed,  find  ourselves  contemplating  QI\\J failure,  uniform 
and  irretrievable  ;  meanwhile,  let  the  reader  observe  that  every 
successive  generation  of  Catholic  missionaries — we  have  noticed 
only  a  single  type  of  each — rivalled  the  triumphs  of  that  which 
preceded  it,  and  always  by  the  same  methods.  Never  in  the 
annals  of  the  Christian  apostolate  was  the  work  and  presence  of 
God  more  visibly  manifested.  Never  were  His  messengers 
adorned  with  richer  graces,  nor  endowed  with  more  irresistible 

*  Prat,  p.  496. 


CHAPTER   III. 

might.    And  they  continued  to  the  last  hour  such  as  de'  Nobili, 
de  Britto,  and  Laynez. 

Let  us  resume  the  catalogue  which  we  have  interrupted,  and 
remember,  for  our  own  sake,  if  not  for  theirs,  Fathers  Martin 
and  Bouchet,  whom  France,  the  nursery  of  evangelists,  gave  to 
the  Indian  mission.  The  firs't,  who  was  surnamed  "  the  Martyr 
of  Charity,"  and  who  spoke  almost  all  the  dialects  of  the  East, 
baptized  in  the  single  year  1698  two  thousand  catechumens,  and 
has  sufficiently  revealed  the  character  of  his  converts  by  re- 
cording, that  it  sometimes  happened  to  a  missionary  "  to  hear 
the  confessions  of  several  villages  without  finding  a  single  person 
guilty  of  a  mortal  sin."  Of  the  wealthier  converts  he  relates 
that,  in  the  season  of  Lent,  some  would  undertake  to  provide 
for  five  poor  persons,  in  honor  of  the  Five  Wounds  of  our 
Lord ;  some  for  thirty- three,  in  memorial  of  His  life  on  earth  ; 
some  for  forty,  in  remembrance  of  His  sojourn  in  the  desert. 
Father  Martin  had  been  captured  by  the  Arabs  on  his  way  from 
Persia  to  India,  together  with  his  companion  Father  Beauvol- 
lier ;  but  they  escaped  death,  because  as  the  one  was  always 
reading  Arabic  and  the  other  Persian  books,  their  tormentors 
supposed,  in  spite  of  their  vehement  rejection  of  Islamisrn,  that 
they  were  not  Europeans.  It  is  Father  Martin  who  reports, 
that  the  pagans  in  his  time  expressed  such  profound  veneration 
for  St.  Francis  Xavier,  "  that  there  was  reason  to  fear  lest  they 
should  place  him  in  the  rank  of  their  false  divinities."  He 
also  mentions  the  fact,  characteristic  of  this  extraordinary 
mission,  that  in  his  day,  "no  missionary  baptized  less  than  one 
thousand  converts  yearly"* 

Of  his  companion  Father  Bouchet  it  was  said,  that  he  might 
have  declared  of  one  of  the  cities  which  he  inhabited,  in  the 
words  of  St.  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  "  There  were  only  seven- 
teen Christians  when  I  came  here,  and  now,  thanks  to  Jesus 
Christ,  there  are  only  seventeen  infidels.''  In  the  year  1700 
this  illustrious  missionary  wrote :  "  Our  mission  of  Madura  is 
more  flourishing  than  ever ;"  and  then  assigned  as  a  sufficient 
explanation  of  its  progress,  "  We  have  had  this  year  four  great 
persecutions.'^  In  tne  same  year  he  said,  "I  think  I  must 
have  heard  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  confessions." 
-From  him  also  we  learn  that  the  catechists  and  other  converts 
of  that  period  bore  torture  with  the  heroism  of  the  primitive 
saints ;  and  no  marvel,  when  we  consider  what  their  teachers 
were.  "In  India,"  says  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  speaking  of 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  "  they  suffered  martyrdom  with  heroic 

*  Bertrand,  tome  iv.,  p.  12. 

f  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  xiv.,  p.  192. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA. 

constancy  ;"*  and  their  disciples,  here  as  in  China,  learned  to 
imitate  their  valor.  It  was  of  Bouchet  himself  that  the  hea- 
then said,  when  on  one  occasion  they  were  sacking  his  humble 
dwelling,  "This  strange  man  is  as  little  concerned  as  if  we 
were  pillaging  his  enemy's  house ;  he  does  not  even  look  at 
us !"  And  when,  at  another  time,  being  made  prisoner,  his 
captors  proposed  to  secure  him  for  the  night  in  a  temple  of 
idols,  he  escaped  the  pollution  by  warning  them,  that  he  would 
break  all  the  idols  to  pieces.  It  was  Father  Bouchet,  once 
more,  who  said,  "  Our  missionaries,  who  are  sometimes  obliged 
to  visit  Madras,  speak  warmly  of  the  courtesy  of  the  English, 
and  of  the  marks  of  friendship  with  which  they  honor  them. 
I  owe  them  this  expression  of  our  gratitude,  and  am  rejoiced 
to  have  an  opportunity  of  declaring  it  publicly. rf 

Nor  let  us  forget  Xavier  Borghese,  in  whom  every  good  and 
perfect  gift  seems  to  have  been  united ;  who  had  renounced  all 
the  highest  honors  of  the  world,  and  with  his  brother,  and  two 
cousins  of  the  same  illustrious  family,  had  offered  himself 
to  God  in  the  Society  of  Jesus.  It  was  he  who  when  bidden 
by  the  heathen  judge,  as  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles  was  once 
bidden,  no  longer  to  mention  the  Holy  Name,  answered  with 
sublime  indignation,  "  Think  you  that  I  left  my  country,  and 
all  that  was  dear  to  me  on  earth,  and  came  here  to  preach  the 
law  of  the  true  God,  only  to  keep  silence  now  that  I  am  here?" 
And  when  the  heathen  heard  him,  they  said  one  to  another, 
"  This  man  is  a  rock,  at  whose  feet  threats  and  words  break 
like  the  waves.";):  Then  the  judge  arrayed  before  his  eyes  the 
instruments  of  torture,  and  Borghese  smiled  and  said,  "These 
are  only  fit  to  frighten  children ;  when  I  came  hither  to  preach 
the  Gospel  I  expected  to  suffer  more  than  this."  "  We  will 
see,"  replied  the  judge,  "  whether  your  disciples  have  as  much 
courage  as  yourself;"  and  then  he  ordered  his  soldiers  to  break 
the  bones  of  one  of  his  catechists."  "  Now  I  begin,"  exclaimed 
the  latter,  as  soon  as  he  heard  the  command,  "to  be  truly  your 
disciple.  Do  not  fear,  my  Father,  that  I  shall  do  any  thing 
unworthy  of  a  Christian.  Only  give  me  your  blessing,  and  I 
am  ready  to  bear  all."§  The  apostles  of  India,  it  is  evident, 
had  known  how  to  form  -the  same  class  of  disciples  as  their 
brethren  in  China. 

With  Borghese  let  us  number  also  the  two  brothers  Carvalho, 
Simon  and  Joseph,  rivals  in  virtue,  both  martyrs  in  desire,  and 
one  in  fact,  as  the  prison  of  Tanjore  could  testify  ;  and  LaFon- 

*  Review  of  the  Causes  of  the  Revolution;  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  251  (1846). 
|  Lettres,  tome  xiii.,  p.  105. 
{  Lettres,  tome  x.,  p.  210. 
§  Bertrand,  tome  iv.,  p.  94. 


240  CHAPTER  III. 

taine,  destined  for  China,  but  arrested  on  the  way  by  his 
admiration  for  the  Indian  mission,  and  who  converted  such 
a  multitude  of  the  highest  caste  that  he  was  called  "  the 
Apostle  of  the  Brahmins  ;"  and  De  Proenza,  who  in  three  years 
won  ten  thousand  souls,  whose  conversion  he  modestly  at- 
tributed to  the  edifying  example  of  his  neophytes,  and  the 
salutary  effects  of  persecution,  rather  than  to  his  own  labors  ; 
and  De  Mello,  who  counted  fifteen  thousand  three  hundred  and 
eighty-six  as  the  harvest  of  four  consecutive  years  ;  and  de  Saa, 
who  smiled  upon  his  torturers,  and  when  their  bloody  work 
was  over,  finished  by  giving  them  his  blessing,  at  their  own  re- 
quest ;  and  Capelli,  who  having  vainly  sought  to  enter  Ton- 
quin,  found  in  India  the  grave  which  was  refused  him  in  China. 
Nor  must  we  omit  Diaz  and  Bertholdi,  Rodriguez  and  Pe- 
reyra,  Belmonte  the  martyr,  and  Bouttari,  named  by  the  heathen 
"  the  Penitent  without  spot,"  over  whose  body  even  the  English 
shed  tears  of  regret  ;*  and  d'Alineida  and  da  Cunha,  both  kins- 
men of  martyrs,  and  the  latter  beaten  to  death  with  clubs,  like  St. 
James,  his  last  words  being  the  holy  Name  of  Jesus.  Let  us 
remember  also,  that  we  may  gain  their  prayers,  Ribeiro  and 
Louis  de  Vasconcellos,  de  Choisel  and  de  Montjustin,  Maury 
and  de  Saint  Estevan,  Mamiani  and  de  Faria  ;  and  Boves,  who 
was  led  with  a  chain  round  his  neck  to  confess  Father  Fernan- 
dez, who  was  dying  in  prison  of  his  torments  ;f  and  Paul  de 
Mesquita,  who  was  martyred  by  Dutch  Calvinists ;  and  the 
three  Dominicans  whom  the  Mussulmans  slew,  and  then  con- 
fessed that  they  saw  three  days  after  enveloped  with  light. 
Let  us  recall  also  Beschi,  the  prodigy  of  genius  and  erudition, 
of  whom  a  Protestant  missionary  relates,  in  185i,  that  he  was 
"  the  best  Tamil  scholar  of  his  age,"  and  that  "  his  name  is 
venerated  even  among  the  Hindoo  literati  ;"J  and  the  learned 
and  chivalrous  Intorcetta,  not  unworthily  honored  by  the 
magnificent  panegyric  of  Abel  Remusat.  To  these  let  us  add, 
since  we  may  not  stay  to  relate  all  their  noble  deeds,  the 
apostolic  Yerjus,  who  used  to  say  to  his  younger  brethren  when 
they  desired  to  follow  him  into  India,  u  It  is  not  to  Thabor  that 
Jesus  invites  you,  but  to  Calvary,  and  to  death."  And  this  he 
said  not  to  discourage,  but  to  warn  them.  "  Remember,"  he 
added,  "  that  arrapostle  dies  daily.  Do  not,  then,  conceal  from 
yourselves  the  difficulties  ;  they  are  very  great,  and  the  ordinary 
measure  of  charity  is  not  sufficient  to  overcome  them.  But  the 
charity  of  Jesus  Christ  which  animates  you  will  no  doubt 

*  Tome  iv.,  p.  403. 

f  Henrion,  tome  ii.,  lere  partie,  p.  187. 

i  The  Land  of  the  Veda,  by  the  Rev.  Peter  Percival,  ch.  vi.,  pp.  118-120 
(1854). 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  241 

augment  your  own."*  It  was  Yerjus  who  said  to  a  dying 
father,  who  proposed  to  disinherit  a  wicked  son,  and  to  leave 
all  his  property  to  the  Society,  "  Such  sentiments  are  riot  in 
accordance  with  the  dispositions  which  become  us  at  the  hour 
of  death.  Send  for  your  son,  speak  to  him  as  a  father,  and  then 
do  whatever  reason,  paternal  love,  and  religion  may  inspire. 
But  whatever  decision  you  adopt,  choose  any  other  heir  than 
the  Jesuits ;  and,  for  myself,  be  assured  that,  however  ardently 
I  may  desire  the  establishment  of  my  mission,  rny  zeal  shall 
never  serve  as  a  pretext  either  to  the  vengeance  of  a  father  or 
the  ruin  of  a  son."  It  is  pleasant  to  add,  to  the  honor  of  our 
country  and  people,  the  statement  of  Yerjus,  that  "even  Eng- 
land, though  at  war  with  us,  sometimes  furnished  us  with  op- 
portunities of  dispatching  our  missionaries  by  her  ships,  and 
we  ought  to  confess  our  obligations  to  the  Royal  Company  of 
London  for  the  good  offices  which  it  has  performed  for  us  in 
this  respect." 

Who,  again,  more  nearly  approached  the  true  apostolic  char- 
acter than  the  -martyr  cie  Sidoti,  who,  in  1709,  was  landed 
alone  on  the  coast  of  Japan,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrance  of  the 
officers  of  the  ship  which  conveyed  him,  and  to  whom  he  re- 
plied :  u  It  is  not  in  my  own  strength  that  I  confide  to  sub- 
due these  people  to  the  yoke  of  the  Gospel,  but  in  the  all- 
powerful  grace  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the  protection  of  so 
many  martyrs  who  in  this  land  have  shed  their  blood  for  His 
name."  As  the  boat  approached  the  shore,  he  was  observed  to 
be  absorbed  in  prayer,  and  on  landing  kissed  the  ground.  Don 
Carlos  de  Bonio,  looking  out  of  curiosity  into  the  bag  which 
contained  all  his  effects,  found  a  small  portable  altar,  a  box 
containing  the  consecrated  oils,  a  breviary,  the  Imitation  of 
Christ,  a  crucifix,  a  picture  of  the  Blessed  Yirgin,  and  two 
Japanese  grammars.  This  was  all  his  wealth.  He  was  seized 
almost  immediately,  shut  up  in  prison  at  Jeddo, — where  he 
converted  his  keepers,  who  were  all  martyred, — and  finally 
inclosed  in  a  pit  with  a  small  aperture  to  admit  air,  where  he 
died  a  lingering  death.f 

*  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  x.,  p.  376. 

f  Lettres,  tome  xi..  p.  278.  For  the  sake  of  brevity,  all  reference  to  the  mission 
of  Japan,  so  inexpressibly  glorious  both  to  the  apostles  and  their  converts,  is 
omitted  in  these  pages.  Here  also  the  intrigues  of  Protestantism,  and  the  unex- 
ampled crimes  of  the  Dutch  Calvinists,  aided  by  the  commercial  rivalry  of  Spain 
and  Portugal,  ruined  a  flourishing  church,  and  secured  the  triumph  of  paganism. 
"  The  faith  implanted  in  the  breasts  of  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of  converts," 
says  a  living  Protestant  writer, "  was  no  mere  nominal  creed,  to  be  swept  away  by 
the  first  wave  of  persecution.  It  not  only  furnished  them  with  courage,  but  with 
arguments  with  which  to  meet  their  persecutors.  .  .  .  The  early  records  of  the 
Church  do  not  afford  instances  of  more  unflinching  heroism  than  is  furnished  in 
the  narratives  of  those  martyrdoms  to  which  Japanese  of  all  ranks  were  sub- 

17 


242  CHAPTER  III. 

Not  unworthy  to  be  compared  with  this  faithful  witness  was 
Le  Caron,  though  his  apostolic  career  ended  almost  as  soon  as 
it  began.  Learning,  immediately  upon  his  arrival  in  India, 
that  a  number  of  idolaters,  driven  out  of  their  village  by  the 
inhabitants  because  afflicted  with  a  contagions  malady,  were 
dying  miserably  in  a  neighboring  forest,  he  hastened  to  their 
succor ;  and  after  ministering  with  patient  charity  to  the  bodily 
wants  of  these  afflicted  outcasts,  and  converting  nearly  the 
whole  of  them  to  Christ,  he  died  himself,  together  with  his  cate- 
chist,  of  the  disease  which  destroyed  at  once  the  evangelist  and 
his  disciples.* 

Such  as  these  they  continued  to  the  end,  and  to  their  last 
hour  He  whom  they  served  was  with  them.  Like  their  brethren 
in  China,  no  perils  could  alarm,  no  sufferings  discourage,  no 
malice  resist  them.  Filled  with  the  presence  of  God,  all  teach- 
ing the  same  uniform  doctrine,  and  all  illustrating  it  by  the 
same  marvellous  sanctity  of  life,  they  won  first  the  admira- 
tion and  then  the  love  and  confidence  of  a  race  naturally  dis- 
posed to  the  contemplation  of  Divine  things,  and  only  asking 
for  teachers  whose  virtues  proved  that  God  was  with  them. 
"  Catholicism,"  says  Ranke,  without  appreciating  his  own 
words,  "  was  eminently  calculated  to  vanquish  even  such  a 
world  as  this."  Not  one  of  them,  we  have  been  told,  converted 
less  than  a  thousand  pagans  annually.  And  these  apostolic 
triumphs  continued,  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  all  human  aids, 
up  to  the  last  hour.  Even  Protestants  have  confessed,  that  if 
they  had  not  been  forcibly  withdrawn,  they  would  probably 
have  converted  all  India.  "  Their  progress,"  to  quote  Ranke 
once  more,  "  outwent  all  expectation,  and  they  succeeded  in 
overcoming,  at  least  to  a  certain  extent,  the  resistance  of  those 
national  systems  of  religion  which  are  the  immemorial  growth 
of  the  East."f  As  late  as  1730, — for  we  must  hasten  to  an 

jected  when  the  day  of  trial  came.  .  .  .  We  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  last 
spark  has  never  yet  been  extinguished,  and  that,  smouldering  secretly,  the 
fire  of  Francois  Xavier  still  burns  in  the  bosoms  of  some  of  those  who  have  re- 
ceived the  traditions  of  his  teaching."  Oliphant,  Lord  Elgin's  Mission,  vol.  ii., 
ch.  ii.,  p.  25.  Another  British  official  not  only  confirms  this  report,  but  adds, 
from  personal  observation,  the  following  extremely  remarkable  statement. 
"  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  in  the  island  of  Yezo  alone  there  are  more  than 
eighty  thousand  persons  who  have  secretly,  in  fear  and  trembling,  maintained 
and  preserved  not  only  the  utensils  and  books  of  their  Christian  ancestors,  but 
who  actually  by  stealth  still  practise  their  worship.  The  Japanese  are  a  think- 
ing race ;  they  admit  they  have  no  good  religion,  and  were  it  allowed  by  the 
government,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  asserting  that  from  one  end  of  Japan  to 
the  other  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  would  be  hailed  with  delight,  and  ac- 
cepted with  unanimity/'  A  Residence  in  Japan,  by  C.  Pemberton  Hodgson, 
late  H.B.M.  Consul,  ch  vi.,  p.  143  (1861). 

*  Lettres,  tome  xiii.,  p.  222. 

f  Book  vii.,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  92-97. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  243 

end,  and  cannot  attempt  in  such  a  sketch  as  this  to  recount  all 
their  labors,  or  even  to  record  their  names, — we  still  find 
Father  Calmette  acknowledging  with  devout  gratitude  the 
"grace  de  miracles  constants  et  asscz  ordinaire"  with  which 
they  were  favored ;  and  in  1743  Father  Possevin  could  once 
more  say,  "There  is  not  in  the  world  a  more  flourishing  mission 
than  that  of  India,  nor  one  in  which  the  faithful,  of  all  the 
provinces,  offer  more  numerous  examples  of  those  virtues  which 
were  the  glory  of  primitive  Christianity."* 

For  more  than  two  hundred  years,  the  Indian  apostles  had 
pursued,  with  almost  unvarying  success,  their  task  of  mercy, 
and  now  we  approach  the  last  page  of  their  annals.  The  evil 
day  was  at  hand,  but  when  it  came  it  found  them  such 
as  their  fathers  had  ever  been.  To  the  last  hour,  and  in  every 
land  which  was  blessed  by  their  presence,  they  displayed  the 
same  apostolic  graces  which  forced  even  an  apostate,  filled  with 
admiration  of  u  their  learning,  their  philosophical  genius,  their 
piety,  and  their  benevolence,"  to  exclaim,  "  The  Jesuits  have 
been  the  greatest  missionaries  upon  earth. "f  M.  Perrin  had 
now  reached  India,  and  tells  us,  as  one  example  out  of  many, 
of  Father  Busson,  still  emulating  the  unwearied  charity  and 
valiant  austerities  of  those  who  had  gone  before  him  ;  Busson, 
who  ate  nothing  but  bread  and  bitter  herbs,  and  yet  labored 
without  ceasing,  and  "  though  covered  with  wounds  and  ulcers, 
seemed  always  insensible  to  pain,  always  calm,  gentle,  and  gay, 
and  died  at  last  at  the  foot  of  his  crucifix."  Finally,  let  us 
mention  the  name  of  Xavier  d' Andrea,  the  youngest  of  all,  the 
last  survivor  of  that  noble  army,  and  the  only  one  who  still 
remained  alive  in  India  when  the  Society  was  re-established 
by  Pius  YIL,  in  1814.  With  him  the  record  closes;  for  now 
the  hour  of  darkness  was  at  hand,  and  the  Evil  One  was  about 
to  snatch  his  first  victory,  after  more  than  two  centuries  of 
confusion  and  defeat. 


SUPPRESSION   OF   THE   JESUITS. 

In  1754,  Mary  Anna,  of  Austria,  sister  of  Charles  VI.,  and 
wife  of  John  V.  of  Portugal,  who  had  worked  with  her  own 
hands  for  the  Indian  missionaries,  and  supported  them  with  all 
her  strength, — foreseeing  that  great  outburst  of  blasphemy  and 
crime  which  began  with  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuits  and 
culminated  in  the  French  revolution, — exclaimed,  shortly  before 

*  Tome  xiv.,  p.  192. 

f  Travels  and  Adventure*  of  Dr.  Wolff,  ch.  vii.,  p.  144  (1861). 


244  CHAPTER   III. 

her  death,  "  Woe  to  these  missions  when  I  am  no  more !"  Her 
prediction  of  sorrow  was  speedily  accomplished.  In  the  follow- 
ing year,  all  the  succors  which  the  missionaries  had  heen  ac- 
customed to  receive  from  Europe  were  stopped,  and  from  that 
time  till  the  day  of  their  death  the  Bishop  of  Cochin  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Cranganore  lived  upon  alms.  In  1755,  orders 
arrived  from  Portugal,  then  abandoned  by  a  fitting  chastise- 
ment to  the  administration  of  Pombal,  and  one  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  Jesuits  were  seized  at  once,  and  cast  into  prison 
at  Goa.  A  few  weeks  later,  on  the  2d  of  December,  they  were 
dragged  on  board  a  vessel,  of  which  the  captain  vainly  declared 
that  from  forty  to  fifty  was  the  extreme  number  he  could  re- 
ceive. But  the  orders  of  the  viceroy,  Count  d'Ega,  were  im- 
perative, and  the  ship  started  on  a  voyage  during  which  twenty- 
four  of  the  Fathers  died  of  scurvy,  and  the  rest  arrived  more 
dead  than  alive  at  Lisbon,  where  they  were  flung  into  dungeons, 
of  which  only  the  lowest  and  darkest  cells  were  assigned  for 
their  dwelling.  Here  they  languished  for  years,  meek  and  re- 
signed in  the  midst  of  almost  intolerable  sufferings,  and  mourn- 
ing rather  for  their  orphaned  flock  than  for  their  own  unmerited 
wrongs.  Once  they  met  during  their  captivity,  each  standing 
at  the  door  of  his  cell,  to  hear  from  the  month  of  a  jailer, 
fitting  deputy  and  agent  of  the  Marquis  de  Pombal,  the  total 
suppression  of  the  Society.  Thirty-five  died  in  prison  during 
the  first  sixteen  years,  among  whom  were  Diaz,  Albuquerque, 
and  da  Silva ;  and  when  at  length  the  doors  were  opened,  and 
they  were  permitted  to  re-enter  a  world  in  which  they  had  no 
longer  a  home,  a  family,  or  a  calling,  forty -five  Fathers  sur- 
vived, sole  remnant  of  all  the  missionaries  of  India,  China,  and 
America,  amounting  to  many  thousands. 


EFFECTS    OF   THK    SUPPRESSION. 

And  now  India  was  abandoned  once  again  to  the  demons  who 
had  so  long  ruled  her.  Never,  perhaps,  during  their  ceaseless 
warfare  with  our  race,  had  the  powers  of  darkness  gained  a 
more  signal  triumph.  The  great  apostles  who  had  been  able, 
by  the  irresistible  might  which  they  derived  from  their  union 
with  God,  to  overthrow  u  principalities  and  powers,"  were  now 
forever  silenced  ;  or  if  they  still  lifted  up  their  voices,  it  was  in 
that  company  which  St.  John  saw,  "  under  the  altar,"  to  whom 
it  was  said,  that  u  they  should  rest  for  a  little  time,  till  their 
fellow-servants  and  their  brethren,  who  are  to  be  slain  even  as 
they,  should  be  filled  up?*  Meanwhile,  their  implacable 

*  Apoc.  vi.  11. 


MISSIONS   IN  .INDIA.  245 

enemies  seemed  to  triumph  over  them.  "  For  two  hundred 
years,"  says  one  who  exulted  in  their  fall,  "these  Fathers  had 
struggled  against  hate,  and  though  they  might  flatter  themselves 
with  apparent  reason  that  they  would  overcome  it,  they  finished 
by  succumbing  to  it.  Oh !  how  active  and  vigilant  is  that  hate 
which  is  eternal  like  God,  and  terrible  like  him  !"* 

But  the  real  victims  of  the  barbarous  and  remorseless  con- 
spiracy which  robbed  every  land  at  once, — from  the  frontiers  of 
Europe  to  the  furthest  East,  and  from  Lake  Huron  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Plata, — of  its  pastors  and  evangelists,  were  not  the 
apostles  themselves,  to  whom  suffering  and  ignominy  were  pre- 
cious, and  who  cared  not  how  thorny  was  the  path  which  led 
them  to  Jesus  ;  but  the  unfortunate  heathen,  now  deprived  of 
the  only  teachers  who  were  skilled  to  unloose  their  bonds,  and 
to  win  them  from  their  idolatry  and  superstition  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  true  God.  "  The  Jesuits  bid  fair,"  says  one  whom 
we  have  already  quoted,  and  who  bears  a  name  well  known 
amongst  us,  "  to  convert  both  India  and  China  ;  and,  if  their 
career  had  not  been  stopped  by  political  events,  would  probably 
have  finally  succeeded  "\  We  have  seen  how  great  a  work 
they  had  already  accomplished;  but  it  was  the  mysterious  pur- 
pose of  the  Almighty  that  the  kingdom  of  Satan  should  not  yet 
be  overthrown,  and  they  who  were  most  likely  to  destroy  it 
were  withdrawn  from  the  combat,  just  as  they  seemed  about  to 
obtain  a  final  and  undisputed  victory. 

The  day  which  had  opened  with  such  bright  promise  of  grace 
had  now  set  in  thick  darkness.  The  Hindoo  was  once  more 
alone  with  his  idols,  and  none  remained  to  tell  him  that  he  was 
in  the  embrace  of  death.  No  doubt  he  had  deserved  his  fate ; 
but  there  were  others,  scattered  all  along  both  shores  of  that 
great  peninsula,  from  the  Bay  of  Bengal  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  to 
whom  the  word  of  truth  had  been  declared,  and  who  had  re- 
ceived the  gift  of  faith.  Who  can  think  without  pity  of  their 
sad  lot  ?  Who  should  now  break  to  them  the  bread  of  life  1 
Would  they  struggle  on,  poor  orphans  of  Christ,  trusting  to  His 
compassion  who  is  the  Father  of  the  fatherless ;  or  sink  down  in 
hopeless  despair,  and  forsake  Him  who  seemed  to  have  forsaken 
them  ?  On  one  side  of  them  was  the  Hindoo,  who  upbraided 
them  as  outcasts ;  on  the  other  the  fierce  and  persecuting 
Mahometan,  who  had  already  vexed  them,  and  their  fathers 
before  them,  and  who  now  attacked  them  with  fresh  fury  when 
he  found  that  their  defenders  were  gone.  In  the  single  year 
1784,  thirty  thousand  Christians  of  Canara  were  forcibly  carried 

*  D'Alembert,  Sur  la  destruction  des  Je  suites,  (Euvres,  tome  v.,  p.  244. 
f  India  as  it  may  be,  by  George  Campbell,  Esq.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  397. 


24:6  CHAPTER   III. 

off  at  once,*  and  this  was  only  one  instance  out  of  many.  And 
besides  these  deadly  foes,  and  the  equally  terrible  scourge  of 
"  an  inundation  of  Mahrattas,"  they  were  surrounded  by  sec- 
taries of  every  name  and  creed,  now  bolder  than  ever, — 
Syrian,  Danish,  Dutch,  and  English, — who  each  spread  his 
snare  for  them.  And  they  were  alone,  with  none  to  warn,  to 
guide,  or  to  help.  u For  nearly  sixty  years"  says  one  who 
hated  them  for  the  faith  which  they  professed,  "i.  0.,from  1760 
to  1820,  scarcely  any  care  was  taken  of  the  Catholic  missions,  and 
of  their  numerous  converts.  The  older  missionaries  gradually 
died  out,  while  none  arrived  from  Europe  to  fill  their  place. "f 

Was  this,  then,  to  be  the  end  of  all  the  labors  and  sacrifices, 
of  all  the  prayers  and  meditations,  of  St.  Francis,  of  de  Britto, 
of  Laynez,  of  Borghese,  and  their  fellow-workmen  ?  Why  did 
the  Good  Shepherd  abandon  His  sheep,  and  leave  them  to  a 
warfare  in  which  victory  seemed  impossible,  while  defeat  would 
be  not  only  fatal  to  them,  but  a  sore  reproach  to  the  guides  and 
teachers  who  had  gone  amongst  them  in  His  name,  and  by 
His  aid  had  set  them  free?  Other  churches,  indeed,  even  some 
which  had  been  planted  by  Apostles,  had  perished  utterly ; 
were  these  also  to  be  laid  waste,  and  their  children  to  ask  in 
despair,  "  why  is  my  sorrow  become  perpetual,  and  my  wound 
desperate  so  as  to  refuse  to  be  healed  ?";{ 

The  answer  which  history  supplies  to  this  question  reveals 
one  of  the  most  unexpected  facts  in  the  annals  of  Christianity. 
It  would  almost  seem  as  if  God  had  resolved  to  justify  His 
servants,  by  a  special  and  marvellous  providence,  before  the 
face  of  the  whole  earth;  and  had  left  their  work  to  what  seemed 
inevitable  ruin  and  decay,  only  to  show  that  neither  the  world 
nor  the  devil,  neither  persecution,  nor  fraud,  nor  neglect,  could 
extinguish  the  life  that  was  in  it.  And  so  when  men  came  to 
look  upon  it,  after  sixty  years  of  silence  and  desolation,  they 
found  a  living  multitude  where  they  expected  to  count  only 
"  the  corpses  of  the  dead."  Some  indeed  had  failed,  and  pagan- 
ism or  heresy  had  sung  its  song  of  triumph  over  the  victims  ; 
others  had  retained  only  the  great  truths  of  the  Trinity  and  the 
Incarnation,  while  ignorance,  and  its  twin  sister  superstition, 
had  spread  a  veil  over  their  eyes ;  but  still  the  prodigious  fact 
was  revealed  that  more  than  one  million  remained,  after  half  a 
century  of  utter  abandonment,  who  still  clung  with  inflexible 
constancy  to  the  faith  which  had  been  preached  to  their  fathers, 
and  still  bowed  the  head  with  loving  awe  when  the  names  of 

*  Historical  Sketches  of  the  South  of  India,  by  Colonel  Mark  Wilks,  vol.  ii., 
ch.  xxx.,  pp.  528,  et  seq. 

\  Missions  in  South  India,  by  Joseph  Mullens,  p.  135  (1854). 
J  Jeremias  xv.  18. 


MISSIONS    IN    INDIA.  247 

their  departed  apostles  were  uttered  amongst  them.  Such  is 
the  astonishing  conclusion  of  a  trial  without  parallel  in  the 
history  of  Christianity,  and  which  if  it  had  befallen  the  Chris- 
tians of  other  lands,  boasting  their  science  and  civilization, 
might  perhaps  have  produced  other  results  than  among  these 
despised  Asiatics.  When  we  have  furnished  some  account  of 
their  present  condition,  and  have  heard  what  even  their  enemies 
say  of  them,  we  may  proceed  to  ask  the  latter  what  they  have 
attempted  towards  the  conversion  of  India,  and  how  far  the 
attempt  has  been  successful. 

PRESENT   STATE   OF   THE   INDIAN   MISSION. 

The  following  table,  —  which  exhibits  the  state  of  the  Catholic 
missions  of  India  in  1857,  in  all  the  twenty  Apostolic  Vicariates 
into  which  the  territory  is  now  divided,  —  will  serve  to  show, 
that  the  permanence  which  so  wonderfully  distinguishes  these 
missions,  as  well  as  the  neighboring  churches  of  China,  is  not 
the  privilege  of  one  or  two  places  only,  but  is  equally  con- 
spicuous in  every  part  of  the  country.  It  will  be  observed 
that  the  mission  of  Madura,  founded  by  de'  Kobili,  still  counts 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  Catholics  ;  while  that  of 
Verapoly,  the  field  in  which  so  many  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries 
labored,  numbers  nearly  two  hundred  and  thirty  thousand. 

1857. 

Vicariates.                                        Bishops.  Catholics. 

1  Madras  ..............  Right  Rev.  J.  Fennelly  ..............  44,480 

o  T,      ,                              (           "          Anast.  Hartman  ........  )  ^  ~  .,  AA 

.     2Bomba7  ...........  I          «          Ignatius  Persico  .......  \  17>100 

3  Eastern  Bengal  .  .  .....          "          Thomas  Olliffe  ..........  13,000 

4  Western  Bengal  ........................................  15,000 

5  Pondicherry  ..........  Right  Rev.  Clement  Bonnand  .......  100,046 

6  Madura  ..............                     A.  Canoz,  S.  J  ...........  150,000 

7  Hyderabad  ...........          "          Daniel  Murphy  ..........  4,000 

8  Vizagapatam  .........                     T.  E.  Neyret  ............  7,130 

9  Mangalore  ...........                     Michael  Anthony  ........  30,480 


1  Quilon  ...............  Administrator,  F.  Bernardino  .......  56,000 

2  Mysore  ...............  Right  Rev.  E.  L.  Charbonneaux  .....  17,110 

13  Coimbatore  ...........  Administrator,  C.  Bonnand  ..........  17,200 

14  Agra  ................  Right  Rev.  F.  C.  Carli  ..............  20,100 

15  Patna  ...............  A.Zubber  ...............        3,400 

16  Ava  and  Pegu  ........          "          J.  B.  Bigaudet  ...........        5,320 

17  Malayan  Peninsula  ----          "          A.  Boucho  ...............        5,400 

18  Siam  .................          "          J.  B.  Pallegoix  ...........        4,900 

19  Jaffna  ...............  J.  Bettachini  ............  65,500 

20  Columbo  .............  Cajetano  Antonio*  .......  90,900 

From  this  table,  which  considerably  understates  the  numbers 
*  Madras  Directory  for  1857. 


248  CHAPTER   III. 

at  the  present  time,  we  learn  that  there  are  still  in  the  Indian 
missions  not  far  short  of  one  million  Catholics;  or  if  we  add 
the  Christians  attached  to  the  Goa  schism,  professing  also  to  be 
Catholics,  and  whose  gradual  reconciliation  may  be  anticipated, 
we  shall  have  a  total  of  about  twelve  hundred  thousand,  the 
living  witnesses  of  the  labors  and  triumphs  of  the  missionaries 
of  the  Catholic  Church. 

*The  Indian  Church,  then,  in  spite  of  trials,  which  might 
well  have  dimmed  the  faith  and  exhausted  the  patience  of  her 
children,  still  retains  her  numbers,  and  once  more  folds  her 
sheep  in  secure  pastures  ;  but  even  this  is  not  the  most  striking 
fact  in  her  history.  It  has  always  been  one  of  the  royal 
prerogatives  of  the  Church,  one  of  the  special  marks  of  her 
Divine  origin,  that  she  alone,  —  while  maintaining  her  own 
distinctive  life,  and  baffling,  almost  without  effort,  the  assaults 
of  the  various  sects  and  schools  which  encamp  outside  her 
walls,  —  has  power  to  attract  to  herself,  one  after  another,  the 
children  of  error,  of  whatever  class  or  creed.  We  shall  see 
this  hereafter  impressively  illustrated  in  the  missions  of  Syria 
and  the  Levant.  But  it  was  perhaps  hardly  to  be  expected 
that  India,  after  her  unequalled  misfortunes,  should  furnish 
evidence  of  the  same  truth. 

The  following  table  of  adult  baptisms,  —  i.e.*  conversions,  — 
will  indicate  with  sufficient  clearness  the  operation  of  that 
Divine  power  which  belongs  to  the  Church  alone,  and  by 
which  her  peaceful  conquests  are  made  amongst  all  those,  of 
whatever  class,  who  are  "  ordained  to  eternal  life."  It  will 
be  seen  that  the  returns  are  very  imperfect,  in  some  of  the 
Vicariates  relating  only  to  a  single  year  ;  but  they  will  more 
than  suffice  to  prove  the  fact  which  we  have  affirmed. 


Vicariate,  No.  of  Adult  Baptism, 

1  Madras  ..............  From  1&50  to  1856  ......  742            134 

2  Bombay  ..............     "      1852  to  1854  .....  88              55 

3  Eastern  Bengal  .......  No  return  ............. 

4  Western  Bengal  ......  From  1844  to  1855  .....  112            221 

5  Pondicherry  ..........     "      1853  to  1855  .....  1,384           144 

6  Madura  ..............     "      1853  to  1856  .....  1,045            178 

7  Hyderabad  ...........  No  return  .....  ........ 

8  Vizagapatam  .........  From  1851  to  1855  .....  954             45 

9  Mangalore  ...........  In  1854  ................  100               8 

10  Verapoly  ............  Annually  more  than.  .  .  .  1,000 

11  Quilon  ...............  Inl854  ................  204 

12  Mysore  ..............  In  1853  ...............  .  200 

13  Coimbatore  ..........  From  1848  to  1846  .....  590 

14  Agra  ................  In  1855  ................  20             44 

15  Patna  ..............  In  1855  ................  10              13 

16  Ava  and  Pegu  ........  In  1855  ................  103                1 

17  Malayan  Peninsula  .  .  .In  1855.   ..............  272 

18  Siam  ................  No  return  ............. 

19  Jaffna  ...............  From  1852  to  1855  .....  1,348            124 

20  Columbo  ............  In  1856  ................  326            372 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  249 

It  is  proved,  then,  that  the  churches  founded  by  St.  Francis 
Xavier  and  his  successors  not  only  preserve  their  own  numbers, 
but  are  continually  augmented, — apparently  by  some  thousands 
annually — from  the  ranks  of  Hindoos  and  Mahometans,  of 
Nestorians  and  Armenians,  as  well  as  of  all  the  multiplied 
sects — Anglican,  Anabaptist,  Presbyterian,  Wesley  an,  and 
others, — which  display  to  the  inhabitants  of  India  the  various 
and  ever-shifting  forms  of  Protestantism.  And  the  accessions 
from  these  diiferent  sources  appear  to  increase  annually.  In 
the  year  1859  the  number  of  adult  converts  in  the  single 
province  of  Madura  reached  two  thousand  six  hundred  and 
fourteen;  while  in  the  diocese  of  Yerapoly  "more  than  a 
thousand  heathens  are  being  baptized  yearly,  besides  many 
Nestorians,  and  some  native  Protestants."* 

The  latest  account  from  the  vicariate  of  Madura,  published 
by  Father  Sairit-Cyr,  in  1859,  records  the  reconciliation  of  more 
than  live  thousand  schismatics,  and  the  recent  conversion  of 
five  hundred  idolaters  and  four  hundred  Protestants.  There 
were  at  that  date  forty-three  Jesuit  Fathers  in  the  mission, 
and  thirty-five  had  died  in  their  work  in  the  previous  twenty- 
one  years.  The  native  college  of  Negapatam,  frequented 
exclusively  by  young  men  of  high  caste,  had  already  produced 
seven  priests,  eight  theological  students,  a  large  number  of 
catechists  and  schoolmasters,  and  several  government  officers. 
Five  orphanages  and  three  hospitals  had  been  founded  by  the 
Fathers,  besides  convents  of  Carmelite  and  Franciscan  Suns, 
"who  discharge,"  says  Father  Saint-Cyr,  "with  surprising 
exactness  and  fervor  the  duties  of  the  religious  life.rf  That 
Hindoo  women  should  find  grace  to  lead  the  austere  life  of  the 
Carmelite  or  the  Franciscan,  will  appear  incredible  to  all  but 
those  who  know  what  graces  accompany  a  religious  vocation. 
It  remains  only  to  ascertain,  in  the  last  place,  what  is  the 
character  of  the  existing  native  Catholics,  after  their  long  and 
formidable  trials,  and  how  far  they  display  that  steadfast 
attachment  to  the  Church  of  which  their  fathers  set  them  the 
example. 

CONDITION   OF   THE   CHRISTIANS. 

The  missionaries  who,  during  the  last  twenty  years,  have 
entered  into  the  vineyard  which  others  had  planted,  must  first 
be  heard.  They  had  no  previous  experience  of  Asiatic  Chris- 
tians, and  their  praise,  if  they  praise,  will  at  least  be  free  from 

*  Madras  Catholic  Directory  for  1860,  p.  154. 

f  La  Mission  de  Madure,  par  Louis  Saint-Cyr,  S.  J.,  p.  5  (1859). 


250  CHAPTER  in. 

all  suspicion  of  personal  or  interested  motive.  It  was  the  work 
of  others,  and  not  their  own,  which  they  were  now,  for  the  first 
time,  enabled  to  estimate.  Besides,  their  evidence,  whatever  it 
may  be,  shall  be  compared  immediately  with  that  of  Protestant 
witnesses. 

It  is  in  these  words  that  a  European  missionary,  who  writes 
from  the  coast  of  Coromandel,  describes  his  first  impression: 
"I  am  astonished  at  the  faith  of  these  Christians!"* 

A  little  later,  in  1829,  M.  Bonriand,  subsequently  bishop, 
relates  that  this  faith,  which  half  a  century  of  trial  had  failed  to 
destroy,  was  easily  communicated  to  others,  and  that  he  and 
his  colleague  had  already  baptized  one  hundred  and  seventy 
converts,  chiefly  of  the  highest  castes,  since  their  recent  entrance 
into  the  Telinga  mission  !"f 

In  1838,  Father  Garnier,  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  writes  as 
follows :  "The  Christians  of  these  countries  are  in  general  well 
disposed,  and  strongly  attached  to  the  faith.  The  usages  intro- 
duced among  them  by  the  Jesuits  still  subsist ;  morning 
prayer  in  common,  an  hour  before  sunrise ;  evening  prayer,  with 
spiritual  reading;  catechism  for  the  children,  given  every  day 
by  a  catechist,  "and  the  devotions  of  Mass  on  Sundays  in  the 
chapel.  When  the  missionary  makes  his  tour  of  the  district, 
all  approach  the  sacraments.  But  in  spite  of  these  excellent 
practices,  there  still  remains  much  ignorance  and  superstition ; 
we  shall  have  a  good  deal  to  do  to  form  them  into  a  people  of 
true  Christians.  Our  efforts  shall  be  directed  to  this  end, 
before  we  turn  our  attention  to  the  pagans ;  their  turn  will 
come  when  we  are  more  numerous.  Among  the  latter  there 
are  many  who  are  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God ;  may  we 
soon  be  able  to  gather  them  in  !"J 

In  1839,  Father  Bertrand,  writing  from  Madura,  says  of  the 
Sanars  :  "One  might  almost  say  that  they  have  not  eaten  with 
Adam  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  and  that 
they  were  created  in  the  days  of  original  innocence.  Among 
these  Indians  there  are  numbers,  who,  if  asked  whether  they 
commit  particular  faults,  will  reply:  'Formerly  I  did — it  is 
many  years  since.  I  told  it  to  the  Father,  who  forbade  me  to 
do  so,  and  since  then  I  have  not  committed  It.'  We  reckon 
more  than  seven  thousand  Christians  of  this  caste."§ 

Of  the  Odeages,  "  who  may  be  said  to  live  in  general  in  com- 
parative affluence,  and  esteem  themselves  noble,"  the  same 
witness  says :  "  They  give  great  consolation  to  the  missionary 

*  Annales,  tome  iv.,  p.  152. 
Ibid.,  p.  158. 

Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  168.    English  edition. 
Annals,  vol.  ii.,  p.  142. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  251 

by  their  enlightened  faith,  regard  for  their  family,  and  ad- 
mirable docility." 

Of  the  Brahmins,  "  who  are,  as  it  were,  the  gods  of  the  coun- 
try," this  is  his  report :  "  I  fear  not  to  call  them,  with  some 
exceptions,  whitened  sepulchres.  Christianity  makes  among 
them  but  little  progress."*  "After  the  Brahmins  come  the 
Moddiars  and  the  Vdlages,  of  whom  a  great  many  have  been 
converted  to  Christianity.  Among  these,  the  missionary,  with 
some  few  noble  exceptions,  finds  little  consolation,  bur  many 
annoyances  and  afflictions.  We  have,  however,  two  congrega- 
tions entirely  composed  of  Vellages,  who,  by  their  fervor  richly 
recompense  us  tor  the  labor  we  bestow  upon  them,  and  encour- 
age us  to  take  particular  care  of  the  caste.  They  aie,  more- 
over, the  distinguished  men  of  the  country."  Finally,  he  adds, 
that  u  in  the  midst  of  so  many  crosses,  and  continually  assault- 
ed by  schismatics,  our  Christians  have  been  strong  in  the  faith, 
and  constant  in  their  perseverance." 

In  1842,  Father  Louis  de  Saint-Cyr  makes  the  following 
striking  observation:  "Within  a  certain  radius  around  what 
we  call  the  centre  of  the  mission,  all  the  villages,  with  rare  ex- 
ceptions, are  Christian  ;  beyond  this  circle,  and  a  little  further 
removed  from  the  residence  of  the  Fathers,  you  enter  the  region 
of  paganism.  This  fact  proves  how  valuable  was  the  presence 
of  the  evangelical  laborers  in  this  country,  and  what  a  vivify- 
ing influence  1ms  been  diffused  by  the  exercise  of  the  holy  min- 
istry. If  these  former  converters  of  souls  had  been  more  nu- 
merous, all  this  part  of  India  would  at  the  present  time  be 
enlightened  by  the  light  of  faith."f 

In  the  following  year,  1843,  Mon seigneur  Borghi,  vicar  apos- 
tolic of  Agra,  says  :  "  Ten  years  ago  conversions  were  rare, 
because  pastors  were  few.  Religion  was  then  almost  unknown : 
now  what  a  contrast!  Three  new  churches  lately  built,  Divine 
worship  celebrated  with  solemnity,  double  the  number  of  priests, 
and  I  may  add  also  double  the  number  of  conversions,  for  these 
are  always  proportioned  to  the  number  of  evangelical  laborers. 

Surrounded  as  we  are  by  sects,  religion  advances,  in 

the  midst  of  them,  with  quiet  but  steady  and  unimerrupted 
progress.":): 

In  1845,  a  missionary  writing  from  Trichinopoly  says:  "The 
eagerness  of  the  people  for  instruction  is  one  of  the  finest  traits 
in  their  character.  We  could  keep  the  faithful  for  twenty -four 

/ 

*  Long  before  St.  Francis  Xavier  had  told  St.  Ignatius, "  Si  non  obstarent 
isti  deploratce  malitiae  homines,  gentiles  omnes  nullo  negocio  fierent  Chris- 
tian!." — E-pist.  Indicce,  p.  17  ;  ed.  Berg.,  1566. 

f  Vol.  iv.,  p.  70. 

t  Vol.  v.,  p.  367. 


252  CHAPTER   III. 

hours  together  in  church  without  wearying  their  attention  ;" 
and  he  notices  with  admiration  "the  tender  emotion  which  they 
display,  shedding  tears  and  bowing  their  heads  to  the  ground, 
when  the  image  of  the  Crucified  is  exhibited  to  them."*  This 
eagerness  of  the  Catholic  natives  for  religious  instruction,  of 
which  they  were  so  long  deprived,  is  attested  by  a  candid  Prot- 
estant missionary,  who  says:  "It  is  remarkable  that  the  books 
published  at.  Pondicherry  should  obtain  such  a  wide  circulation. 
Those  who  cannot  afford  to  pay  the  price  for  a  printed  copy  ob- 
tain the  loan  of  one,  and  transcribe  it  on  the  palm  leaf."f 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  these  interesting  testimonies,  but 
it  is  time  to  confirm  them  by  Protestant  evidence.  The  Catholic 
writers  exaggerate  nothing,  but  recount  with  the  same  simplicity 
their  consolations  and  their  trials.  Ignorance,  they  say,  is,  on 
account  of  past  neglect,  the  great  misfortune  of  some  of  their 
flocks,  and  it  is  to  remove  this  master  evil  that  their  first  efforts 
are  directed.  They  earnestly  complain  also  of  the  demoralizing 
influence  of  Europeans,  especially  in  the  large  cities  on  the  coast, 
where  the  native  Christians,  exposed  to  every  species  of  cor- 
rupting agency  and  example,  are  too  often  a  subject  of  grief  and 
anxiety  to  their  pastors.  They  lament,  too,  with  reason,  the 
multiplication  of  sects,  all  contending  together  in  the  very  face 
of  the  heathen,  and  outbidding  one  another,  like  eager  mer- 
chants, in  their  attempts  to  purchase  "converts,"  while  they 
bring  contempt  and  derision  upon  the  religion  which  they  pro- 
fess to  hold.  But. in  spite  of  these  manifold  difficulties,  they  are 
perfectly  unanimous  in  reporting  the  constancy  of  their  disciples, 
the  virtues  of  many  of  them,  and  the  gradual  progress  of  the 
faith.  Let  us  now  see,  in  conclusion,  how  far  their  testimony 
agrees  with  that  of  Protestant  writers  of  all  sects — most  of 
whom,  it  should  be  observed,  have  manifested  a  hatred  of  the 
Catholic  Church  which  will  at  least  clear  their  evidence  from 
all  suspicion  of  partiality. 

To  begin  with  the  celebrated  Henry  Martyn,  we  learn,  by 
undesigned  confessions,  both  the  spiritual  influence  of  the 
clergy,  and  the  obstinate  stability  of  their  flocks.  The  first 
Martyn  attests  and  envies  in  the  following  declaration  :  "  Cer- 
tainly there  is  infinitely  better  discipline  in  the  Romish  Church 
than  in  ours,  and  if  ever  I  am  to  be  the  pastor  of  native  Chris- 
tians"— a  hope  which  was  not  destined  to  be  fulfilled — "  I 
should  endeavor  to  govern  with  equal  strictness.''^  The  second 
fact  his  biographer  unwittingly  proclaims,  when  he  tells  us  that 


*  Vol.  vii.,  p.  245. 

The  Land  of  the  Veda,  by  the  Rev.  P.  Percival,  ch.  vi.,  p.  122. 
Memoir  of  the  Rev.  H.  Martyn,  p.  288,  9th  edition. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  253 

Martyn  "made  an  offer  to  the  Rom an  Catholics  at  Patna  of 
preaching  to  them  on  Sundays,  but  the  proposal  was  re- 
jected"* 

Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan,  whose  candor  often  trips  up  his  pre- 
judice, is  our  next  witness.  "Dr.  Buchanan,"  says  Major  Scott 
Waring,  "does  justice  to  the  Romish  clergy  and  missionaries 
in  India,  whom  he  describes  as  pious  and  zealous  men,  and 
that  they  have  done  much  good  by  the  purity  of  their  lives, 
and  the  influence  of  their  example."f  But  let  us  hear  Bu- 
chanan himself:  "There  are  at  this  day  in  India,"  he  says, 
"  members  of  the  Church  of  Rome  who  deserve  the  affection 
and  respect  of  all  good  men.";]:  But  he  has  more  to  tell  us. 
He  travelled  much,  as  is  well  known,  in  Southern  India,  and 
here  are  some  of  his  observations :  "  From  Cape  Comorin  to 
Cochin  there  are  about  one  hundred  churches  on  the  sea-shore 
alone.  Of  these  the  chief  part  are  the  Syrian-Latin,  or  more 
properly  the  Syrian-Romish  churches.  Before  each,  on  the 
sand  of  the  shore,  is  a  lofty  cross,  which,  like  the  church  itself, 
is  conspicuous  at  a  great  distance."  Sometimes  he  saw  churches 
of  more  recent  construction.  "The  civil  magistrate  of  the 
island  of  Ley  den  showed  me  three  Roman  Catholic  churches 
lately  built,  and  assured  me  that  every  person  on  the  island  is 
a  Christian."  He  is  next  at  Jaffna,  and  in  the  church  there, 
"  the  largest  structure  of  slight  building  which  I  ever  saw, 
every  Sunday  about  a  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  people  at- 
tend, and  on  feast  days  three  thousand  and  upwards."  At 
Manaar,  "  they  were  all  Romish  Christians."  At  Tutycorin, 
"the  whole  of  this  tribe,  without  exception,  are  Christians  in 
the  Romish  communion."  "  I  visited  Mahe  and  Calicut. 
The  Romish  Christians  are  numerous."  And  then  he  relates 
what  kind  of  Christians  even  the  poor  boatmen  in  his  employ 
were.  "Before  they  hoisted  the  sail,  they  all  joined  in  prayer 
to  God  for  protection.  Every  man  at  his  post  with  the  rope 
in  his  hands  pronounced  his  prayer.  .  .  .  One  of  Mr.  Swartz's 
catechists,  who  accompanies  me  everywhere,  appeared  to  be  a 
good  deal  edified  by  the  scene."§ 

Dr.  Kerr,  also  an  Anglican  minister  at  Calcutta,  confirms 
Buchanan's  account,  though  with  extreme  regret,  and  tells  us 
that  "  the  Roman  Catholic  Syrians,  it  is  thought,  are  much  more 
numerous  than  the  members  of  the  original  church.  .  .  their 
congregations  are  reported  at  ninety  thousand"  'While  of  the 

missions  attached  to  the  college  of  Yerapoly,  he  says :  "The 

»• 

*  P.  274. 

f  Letter  to  the  Rev.  John  Owen,  by  Major  Scbtt  Waring,  p.  15. 

i  Christian  Researches  in  Asia,  p.  75  (1840). 

§  Pearson's  Memoirs  of  BucJianan,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  49-60.    3d  edition. 


254  CHAPTER   III. 

number  of  Christians  composing  these  churches  must  be  great, 
as  all  and  every  of  the  fishermen  are  Roman  Catholics."* 

Dr.  Middleton,  the  first  Protestant  bishop  in  Calcutta,  who 
considered  that  for  a  Hindoo  to  become  a  Catholic  "  is  little  more 
than  exchanging  one  idol  for  another,"  will  now  give  us  his  tes- 
timony. "In  the  evening,"  he  informs  us,  "Mrs.  Middleton 
and  myself  usually  walk  on  the  sea-shore,"  a  habit  which  some- 
times made  them  witnesses  of  instructive  scenes.  "  During  one 
of  his  evening  walks,"  says  Mr.  Le  Bas,  who  shares  his  notions 
about  the  Catholic  religion,  "  the  bishop  met  with  an  instance 
of  that  retired  and  lonely  religion  which  often  strikes  Protes- 
tants so  forcibly  in  Catholic  countries,  and  which  form,  per- 
haps, one  of  the  most  pleasing  peculiarities  of  the  Romish  wor- 
ship. Being  by  the  water-side,  he  came  near  to  a  small  oratory 
....  lighted  by  three  small  lamps  suspended  from  the  roof. 
In  this  little  chapel,  an  aged  and  solitary  worshipper  was  so 
deeply  engaged  in  prayer  that  he  appeared  insensible  to  the 
presence  of  strangers,  and  paid  no  attention  to  the  bishop  until 
his  devotions  were  finished.  They  then  learned  from  him  that 
this  lowly  house  of  prayer  had  been  constructed  by  himself, 
together  with  four  or  five  other  native  Christians,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  daily  devotion ;  but  that  on  Sunday  he  regularly  at- 
tended the  service  of  the  Church. "f  Dr.  Middleton  must  have 
regretted  that  these  seemingly  devout  Christians  had  only  "  ex- 
changed one  idol  for  another ;"  especially  as  he  remarks,  "  it  is 
curious  that  in  every  part  of  Asia  you  find  the  Church  of  Rome ;" 
and  again,  that  "  Protestants  as  we  are,  it  were  bigotry  to  deny 
that  the  Church  of  Rome,  notwithstanding  that  she  may  have 
exaggerated  her  successes,  has  done  wonders  in  the  East"\ 

Mr.  Rhenius,  who  was  both  an  Anglican  and  a  Lutheran 
minister  at  the  same  time,  and  who  gave  a  great  deal  of  trouble, 
as  we  shall  see  presently,  to  the  Church  which  he  professed  to 
serve,  speaks  like  Martyn,  not  only  of  the  exact  discipline  which 
the  Catholic  missionaries  maintained,  but  of  his  own  misadven- 
tures in  trying  to  seduce  their  flocks.  "  Their  priests  guard 
them  well,"  he  says,  "  against  making  inquiries,  and  ha\  e  care- 
fully instilled  into  their  minds  that  we  are  heretics."§  Ap- 
parently they  had  succeeded  in  producing  that  conviction. 

Mr.  Thornton,  one  of  the  most  exact  authorities  on  Indian 
statistics,  while  he  estimates  the  population  of  the  Goa  district 


*  Report  on  the  State  of  the  Christian*  of  Cochin  and  Travancore,  by  the  Rev. 
>r.  Kerr,  Senior  Chaplain  of  Fort  St.  George,  pp.  10-12. 

f  Life  of  Bishop  Middleton,  by  the  Rev.  C.  Webb  Le  Bas,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix., 
.  265. 


\  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  96. 

§  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxi.,  p.  446. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  255 

at  three  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand  two  hundred  and  sixty- 
two,  adds :  "  Of  this  number  two-thirds  are  stated  to  be 
Christians  of  the  Roman  Catholic  persuasion  ;"*  and  an  equally 
impartial  witness  observes  of  the  same  province,  "The  Roman 
Catholics  have  made  many  converts  among  the  natives,  and 
greatly  contributed  to  their  civilization,  and  dispersed  much  of 
the  darkness  of  paganism. "f  Dr.  Francis  Buchanan,  speaking 
of  the  class  who  are  commonly  most  defamed  by  Protestants,  and 
of  the  several  thousand  Christians  whom  he  visited  at  Tulava, 
the  remnant  of  those  persecuted  by  Tippoo  who  destroyed  all 
their  churches,  generously  says :  u  These  poor  people  have  none 
of  the  vices  usually  attributed  to  the  native  Portuguese,  and 
their  superior  industry  is  more  readily  acknowledged  by  the 
neighboring  Hindus  than  avowed  by  themselves."^:  While 
another  English  writer,  violently  anti  Catholic,  observes  gener- 
ally of  the  Portuguese,  whose  noble  works  it  is  now  the  fashion 
to  decry,  uln  their  whole  course  in  India  the  Portuguese  have 
left  the  traces  of  conversion ;  and  around  the  coast,  from  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  to  Canton  in  China,  a  distance  of  twelve 
thousand  miles,  the  Portuguese  language  is  spoken,  and  the 
cross  of  Christ  adored."§  "  Amidst  the  ruins  into  which  their 
temporal  possessions  have  fallen,"  says  General  Parlby,  "  the 
vestiges  which  they  have  left  of  their  faith  seem  destined  to 
survive  the  debris  of  their  earthly  grandeur,  and  to  be  so  firmly 
rooted  that  they  will  never  be  wholly  effaced."! 

The  Rev.  James  Hough,  though  he  ventures  even  to  sneer  at 
St.  Francis  Xavier,  confesses,  in  a  moment  of  distraction  :  "It 
is  well  known  that  there  are  native  Christians  of  the  Roman 
Church  in  India,  especially  of  the  Carmelite  mission  at  Madras, 
whose  character  is  unexceptionable,  and  who  occupy  stations  of 

responsibility  in  the  public  service Some  have  given 

satisfactory  reason  to  believe  them  to  be  sincere  Christians."^ 

Mr.  Harvard,  a  Wesleyan  missionary,  whose  own  failure 
seems  to  have  left  him  abundant  leisure  to  examine  the  opera- 
tions of  others,  ventures  to  suggest,  that  probably  among  the 
native  Christians,  u  there  are  some  who  worship  God  in  spirit 
and  in  truth  ;"  and  even  tells  us  that  u  the  Portuguese  Chris- 

*  Gazetteer  of  India,  by  Edward  Thornton,  Esq.,  vol.  ii.;  Account  of  Goa. 

f  Remarks  on  Mr.  Turning's  Letter,  by  a  Member  of  the  B.  and  F.  Bible 
Society,  p.  7. 

J  Journey  through  Mysore,  &c.,  by  Francis  Buchanan,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  vol.  iii., 
ch.  xiv.,  p.  24 

§  Fifteen  Tears  in  India,  by  an  Officer  in  His  Majesty's  service,  p.  360  (1828), 
Cf.  Julius  Von  Klaproth,  in  Timkowski's  Travels,  vol  i.,  p.  51,  note. 

J  Tlte  Establishment  of  the  Anglican  Church  in  India,  by  Major-general 
Parlby,  C.B.,  p.  19  (1851). 

Tf  History  of  Christianity  in  India,  vol.  ii.,  p.  491. 


256  CHAPTER   III. 

tians,  by  their  neatness  and  cleanliness,  exhibit  a  pleasing 
contrast  to  the  external  appearance  of  their  heathen  neigh- 
bors."* 

Mr.  Wylie  also, — who  has  written  a  work  on  the  Bengal 
missions,  in  which  he  notices  that  at  Chittagong  "  the  Chris- 
tians are  mostly  Roman  Catholics,"  and  that  the  number  of 
children  at  the  Catholic  school  u  exceeds  one  hundred," — 
supplies  fresh  evidence  of  the  energy  with  which  they  embrace 
the  doctrines  proposed  to  them.  "  They  are  restricted,"  he 
says,  "  from  attending  Protestant  churches  or  schools,  on  pain 
of  expulsion  from  the  Church,  and  denial  of  the  rites  of 
sepulchre."t  What  would  they  have  cared  for  either,  if  they 
had  not  been  devout  Christians,  who  perfectly  comprehended 
the  nature  of  the  penalty  ? 

Mr.  Mullens,  again,  who  was  a  Protestant  missionary,  and 
whose  ordinary  language  about  the  Catholic  Church  is  a  sort  of 
wild  shriek  of  uncontrollable  passion,  writes  thus :  "  At  the 
present  time,  1854,  the  Jesuit  and  Roman  Catholic  missions  are 
spread  very  widely  throughout  the  Madras  Presidency.  We 
have  nothing  like  them  in  North  India,  except  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Dacca,  at  Hussingabad,  Furreedpore,  and  Pubna, 
where  there  is  a  Catholic  population  of  thirteen  thousand 
souls." 

A  little  later,  vexed  by  the  too  palpable  contrast  between 
such  as  himself  and  the  Catholic  missionaries,  he  says  of  the 
latter :  "  I  allow  that  they  dress  simply,  eat  plainly,  and  have 
few  luxuries  at  home.  I  allow  that  they  travel  much,  are 
greatly  exposed,  live  poorly,  and  toil  hard.  I  have  heard  of  a 
bishop  living  in  a  cave  on  fifty  rupees  a  month,  and  devoutly 
attending  the  sick  when  friends  and  relatives  had  fled  from 
fear."  Perhaps  you  think  that  all  this  has  touched  his  heart, 
and  that  he  is  now  going  to  give  glory  to  God  ?  The  anticipa- 
tion would  not  be  unreasonable,  but  he  continues  thus :  "  All 
this  is  much  easier  on  the  Jesuit's  principles," — who,  he  adds, 
"  is  supported  by  motives  of  self-righteousness," — "  than  it  is 
to  be  a  faithful  minister  on  the  principles  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment.";); One  would  have  thought  it  easy  enough  to  live 
luxuriously,  receive  a  large  salary,  and  do  nothing,  except  talk 
about  "  the  principles  of  the  New  Testament."  But  enough  of 
Mr.  Mullens. 

Our  next  witness  belongs  to  the  military  service  of  India,  is 
an  implacable  enemy  of  Catholics,  and  declares  as  follows :  "  I 
speak  far  within  limits  when  I  calculate  the  number  of  native 

*  Narrative  of  the  Mission  to  Ceylon,  by  the  Rev.  W.  Harvard, 
f  Bengal  as  a  Field  of  Missions,  by  M.  Wylie,  Esq.,  p.  65. 
|  Missions  in  South  India,  p.  139. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  257 

Catholics  on  the  coast,  and  in  the  countries  dependent  on  Fort 
St.  George,  at  three  hundred  and  fifty  or  four  hundred  thousand 
souls,  exclusive  of  Bednore,  Malabar,  and  the  countries  for- 
merly converted  by  the  bishop  and  priests  of  Goa."  And  then 
he  adds,  "  Many  Catholic  missionaries  have  from  thirty  to 
seventy  thousand  souls,  over  whom  they  exercise  the  most 
arbitrary  and  despotic  sway."*  Henry  Martyn,  with  better 
judgment,  called  it  "discipline." 

Another,  whose  testimony  refers  to  the  vast  diocese  of  Pondi- 
cherry, in  which  we  have  seen  that  more  than  fifteen  hundred 
converts  were  received  in  two  years,  from  1853  to  1855,  thus 
writes  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries :  "  Whatever  the  prejudices 
against  the  order  may  be,  and  howrever  justly  incurred,  or  other- 
wise, it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Jesuits  were  great  masters  in 
the  art  of  instruction  ;  and  the  advances  which  the  Christians 
of  Pondicherry  have  made  in  the  language  and  principles  of 
European  knowledge,  is  an  eminent  proof  of  the  ability  of  those 
Fathers."f  It  may  be  added,  that  many  English  writers,  and 
amongst  them- Captain  Hervey  in  1850,  attest  the  striking  su- 
periority both  of  natives  and  half-castes  in  the  Pondicherry 
district,;}:  where  French  influence  has  prevailed ;  and  one  of 
them  does  not  fear  to  assert,  that  "in  India,  France  opened  the 
way,  established  a  system  of  native  government,  and  created 
the  whole  of  those  implements  through  which  we  obtained 
possession  of  India."§  It  is  of  the  Catholic  bishop  and  his 
missionaries  at  Pondicherry  that  a  consular  agent  generously 
observes,  "  they  transmit  in  a  single  year  more  useful  docu- 
ments to  Europe,  and  do  more  to  extend  knowledge  and  civiliza- 
tion in  the  world,  than  the  agents  of  the  different  governments, 
such  as  myself  and  others,  do  in  the  whole  course  of  their  lives."|| 

Turning  now  to  another  part  of  India,  we  may  notice  the 
language  of  the  Honorable  F.  J.  Shore  and  of  Colonel  Sleeman 
with  respect  to  the  great  Catholic  colony,  consisting  of  two 
thousand  families,  at  JBettiah,  north  of  Chuprah.  The  former 
says  that  their  bishop  "  had  inculcated  such  sound  principles 
among  them,  that  the  Christian  converts  were  far  more  indus- 
trious, as  well  as  more  moral,  than  their  heathen  neighbors, 
and  were  consequently  much  better  off  in  worldly  comforts  :"T 
and  the  latter,  who  says  of  their  bishop,  "  this  holy  man  had 
been  some  fifty  years  among  these  people,  with  little  or  no 

*  Strictures  on  tJie  Present  Government  of  India,  by  an  Officer,  p.  80. 

f  An  Essay  on  the  Religious  Prejudices  of  India,  p.  23. 

j  Ten  Tears  in  India,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  284. 

§  The  Pillars  of  Hercules,  by  David  Urquhart,  Esq.,  M.P.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  355. 

II  Voyage  dans  I'fude,  etc.,  par  V.  Fontanier,  tome  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  344  (1844). 

1"  Notes  on  Indian  Affairs,  vol.  ii.,  p.  468. 

18 


258  CHAPTER   III. 

support  from  Europe,  or  from  any  other  quarter,"  gives  the 
following  account  of  his  flock,  many  of  whom  were  employed 
at  that  time  in  the  English  camp :  "  Better  workmen  I  have 
never  seen  in  India,  but  they  would  all  insist  upon  going  to 
Divine  service  at  the  prescribed  hours" 

Colonel  Sleeman  adds,  that  "  the  native  Christian  servants 
who  attended  at  the  old  bishop's  table,  taught  by  himself, 
spoke  Latin  to  him."*  An  earlier  writer  had  noticed  the 
same  interesting  community,  and  its  "  venerable  priest,  Father 
Romualdo,"  as  early  as  1816,  and  then  observed,  "their  num- 
bers are  rather  augmenting  than  diminishing,  "f 

Lastly,  the  heathen  themselves  bear  witness  to  the  zeal  and 
sincerity  of  the  Catholic  native,  even  while  perfectly  discrimi- 
nating, as  we  shall  see  more  fully  hereafter,  the  real  character 
of  the  nominal  Protestant  converts.  Long  ago,  as  Mr.  Forbes 
confessed,  they  used  to  say,  "  You  call  yourselves  Christians ; 
so  do  the  Roman  Catholics,  who  abound  in  India.  They  daily 
frequent  their  churches,  fast  and  pray,  &c. ;"  and  then,  refer- 
ring to  the  different  habits  of  Protestants,  they  would  inquire, 
says  Mr.  Forbes,  "  whether  we  really  believed  our  own  Scrip- 
tures ?"J  And  this  is  once  more  confirmed,  as  respects  native 
converts,  in  our  own  day.  An  English  writer,  who  relates  in 
1859  his  conversations  with  Nobinkissen,  an  educated  Hindoo, 
not  only  admits  that  the  latter  described  the  few  Protestant 
converts  as  reprobates  and  impostors,  who  ridiculed  in  secret 
the  very  teachers  whose  wages  they  received,  but  that  he 
frankly  allowed,  in  spite  of  his  pagan  animosities,  that  the 
Catholic  neophytes  were  Christians  indeed.  Their  number, 
the  Hindoo  told  him,  was  small,  for  it  is  not  in  Calcutta  that 
the  Gospel  has  free  course ;  but  even  there,  where  every  in- 
fluence combines  to  thwart  its  progress,  the  work  of  the  mis- 
sionary of  the  Cross  attracts  the  respect  of  the  heathen  himself. 
"  Those  natives,"  Nobinkissen  informed  Mr.  Lang,  "  who  vol- 
untarily present  themselves,  are,  after  a  strict  examination, 
and  a  due  warning  that  they  must  hope  for  no  temporal  ad- 
vantage, admitted  into  the  Church." 

"  And  do  they  have  many  applications  ?" 

"  Very  few  indeed ;  but  those  whom  they  admit  do  really 
and  truly  become  Christians. ,"§ 

*  Recollections  of  an  Indian  Official,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  17. 
f  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  ii.,  p.  68. 

;  Oriental  Memoirs,  by  James   Forbes,  F.R.S.,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  32 ; 
ch.  xxxii.,  p.  185. 
§  Wanderings  in  India,  p.  225. 


MISSIONS   IN  INDIA.  259 


CONCLUSION. 

Such,  even  by  Protestant  and  heathen  testimony,  are  the 
works  of  modern  Catholic  missionaries  in  India,  in  spite  of 
their  poverty,  and  of  all  the  varied  difficulties  which  beset  their 
ministry  in  a  country  of  pagans  under  a  Protestant  government. 
"  The  Roman  Catholic  missions  in  India,"  says  one  of  the 
latest  writers  on  that  country,  "  with  the  most  limited  means, 
have  had  the  most  signal  success."*  Yet  it  would  be  difficult  to 
conceive  a  combination  of  more  formidable  impediments  than 
those  which  they  now  encounter  during  every  hour  of  their 
apostolic  toils.  Opposed  by  the  secret  or  open  hostility  of 
powerful  officials, — destitute  of  temporal  resources, — no  longer 
contending  only  with  the  prejudices  or  the  vices  of  the  heathen, 
but  with  the  far  more  fatal  scandal  of  a  nominal  and  conten- 
tious Christianity,  which  presents  itself  to  him  under  twenty 
different  forms,  and  which  he  contemplates  with  mingled 
surprise  and  contempt,  the  conditions  of  their  warfare  are  less 
favorable  than  in  the  happier  days  when  martyrdom  so  often 
crowned  its  labors,  and  assured  its  triumph.  It  is  the  mission 
of  England,  as  we  shall  see  more  and  more  clearly  in  every 
chapter  of  this  work,  to  make  the  conversion  of  the  heathen 
impossible.  Even  St.  Paul,  and  the  companions  of  St.  Paul, 
would  hardly  have  struggled  with  success  against  the  obstacles, 
hitherto  unknown  in  the  world,  which  Protestantism  creates  in 
every  pagan  land.  When  England  has  no  longer  an  agent  or  a 
representative  in  India,  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross  will  once 
more  contend  on  fair  terms  with  the  evil  spirits  who  rule  her. 
Until  that  hour,  which  is  perhaps  not  far  distant,  they  must  be 
content  to  gain  a  few  here  and  a  few  there,  and  to  deserve  the 
success  which  they  will  not  always  obtain. 

And  now  we  may  close  our  review  of  Catholic  missions  in 
India.  We  have  traced  the  outlines  of  their  history,  from  its 
opening  to  its  final  chapter;  and  if  it  does  not  reveal  the 
presence  of  God  and  the  operations  of  His  grace,  it  were  vain 
to  ask  where  we  must  look  for  the  signs  of  either.  It  was  the 
constant  and  progressive  success  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  in 
this  land  which  first  suggested  to  Protestants,  the  story  of  whose 
operations  will  next  claim  our  attention,  the  attempt  to  rival 
them.  "  The  Catholics,  ages  back,"  said  a  British  writer  hi 
1813,  "  have  converted  numbers  in  India ;  why  then  should 
Protestants  despair?"^  He  forgot  that,  to  imitate  their 

*  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste,  ch.  v.,  p.  130. 

f  The  Duty  of  Britons  to  promote  Christianity  in  India,  by  Joseph  Barrett, 
p.  20. 


260-  CHAPTER  III. 

triumphs,  it  was  necessary  to  be,  in  all  points,  such  as  they 
were.  The  Indian  evangelists, — from  St.  Francis,  who  first  led 
the  way  to  the  shores  of  Asia,  to  Xavier  d' Andrea,  the  last  sur- 
vivor of  that  long  line  of  apostles  who  "  by  faith  conquered 
kingdoms," — were  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves,  yet  they 
found  strength  to  lead  a  supernatural  life,  and  to  die  as  only 
they  can  die  who,  while  living,  have  been  "  hid  with  Christ  in 
God."  It  is  not  by  such  weak  words  as  we  know  how  to  use 
that  their  career  can  be  worthily  described.  To  God  alone  it 
belongs  to  judge  the  men  whom  He  made  what  they  were,  or 
to  measure  the  deeds  which  they  could  neither  have  conceived 
nor  executed,  without  the  succor  of  His  grace  and  the  commu- 
nication of  His  power  and  might. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  261 


PART  II. 


PROTESTANT  MISSIONS. 


WE  have  now,  for  the  second  time,  to  trace  a  contrast.  We 
have  seen  what  men  may  become  who  have  been  trained 
in  the  sanctuary  and  nurtured  at  the  altar  of  God,  and  what 
they  can  accomplish  ;  let  us  inquire,  since  we  have  proposed 
tp  ourselves  this  task,  what  has  been  effected  by  others,  whose 
fathers  laid  waste  that  sanctuary,  and  cast  the  altar  to  the 
ground  that  their  children  might  tread  it  under  foot. 

The  first  fact  which  the  Protestant  writers  reveal  to  us  is 
characteristic,  and  fitly  introduces  the  strange  history  which 
they  have  published  to  the  world  of  the  fortunes  of  Protestant- 
ism in  India.  "More  than  half  a  century,"  they  tell  us, 
elapsed  from  the  first  appearance  of  the  British  in  India, 
"  before  they  thought  of  erecting  a  church  for  themselves."* 
They  were  not,  then,  likely  to  take  much  trouble  about  the 
edification  of  others ;  and  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn,  that 
more  than  a  century  passed  away  before  they  made  any  attempt 
whatever  to  recommend  their  religion  to  the  pagans  among 
whom  they  had  come  to  dwell.  But  even  this  is  not  all. 
During  a  second  period  of  one  hundred  years,  that  attempt, 
though  timid  and  furtive,  was  systematically  prohibited  and 
punished  by  the  English  government  and  its  agents.  "  Of  the 
government  of  India  it  may  truly  be  affirmed,"  says  Dr.  Close, 
u  and  fully  established  by  circumstantial  evidence,  that  its 
whole  weight,  influence,  and  authority,  has  been  directed  against 
the  progress  of  Christianity  among  the  heathen."f  Such  is 
the  opening  page  of  that  long  history  of  unexampled  shame 
which  we  will  now  read  to  its  last  chapter. 

*  An  Indian  Eetrospect,  by  the  Dean  of  Carlisle,  p.  6  (1858). 
f  Ibid. 


262  CHAPTER  III. 


POLICY   OF   THE    GOVERNMENT   IN    INDIA. 

"  The  European  nations  who  succeeded  the  Portuguese  in  the 
dominion  of  India,"  says  Mr.  Hugh  Murray,  referring  to  the 
Danes,  Dutch,  and  English,  "  felt  for  a  long  time  a  much  less 
ardent  zeal  for  the  diffusion  of  their  own  purer  faith  than  had 
animated  the  latter  for  the  propagation  of  Catholic  observances." 
And  as  if  he  felt  that  this  hardly  expressed  the  whole  truth,  he 
presently  adds  :  "  The  conduct  of  the  English  in  India  formed 
a  striking  contrast  to  that  zeal,  however  little  distinguished  by 
knowledge  or  choice  of  means,  which  had  certainly  distinguished 
the  Catholic  nations."* 

It  was  not,  however,  want  of  zeal  only  which  marked  the 
conduct  of  the  English,  nor  was  this  the  only  feature  in  the 
"contrast"  between  them  and  their  Catholic  predecessors. 
They  did  nothing,  indeed,  to  promote  Christianity,  but  they 
displayed  abundant  and  ingenious  energy  in  stifling  the  voice 
of  its  advocates,  and  sternly  prohibiting  its  progress.  For  two 
hundred  years  it  was  a  maxim  with  the  English  of  all  classes, 
that  no  attempt  to  convert  Plindoo  or  Mahometan  should  be 
tolerated.  "  The  fundamental  principle  of  British  rule,"  said 
Lord  William  Bentinck,  "is  strict  neutrality"-^  And  in 
obsequious  accordance  with  this  rule,  "the  East  India  Company 
refused  all  missionaries  passages  in  their  ships  either  to  China 
or  India. "J  In  vain  a  few  individuals  endeavored  to  gain  a 
surreptitious  entrance  into  this  forbidden  land.  "  Two  mission- 
aries who  landed  on  the  banks  of  the  Houghly  were  sent  back 
to  Europe  forthwith  in  the  same  ship  in  which  they  arrived  ;"§ 
— an  effectual  admonition  to  all  who  might  be  tempted  to 
imitate  their  example.  In  1812,  "  the  American  missionaries, 
driven  to  Bombay  from  Calcutta,  were  imprisoned.  When  they 
escaped  in  a  native  coasting  vessel  they  were  pursued,  retaken, 
and  confined  to  the  fort."||  "There  was  a  raid,"  as  another 
writer  expresses  it,  "  against  the  missionaries  in  Bengal,  and 
no  less  than  five,  partly  Americans,  partly  English,  were  driven 
out  of  the  country  by  the  imperative  orders  of  an  unyielding 
government.  "T  Nor  was  this  vigorous  policy  abandoned  so 
long  as  they  could  venture  to  employ  it.  "So  late  as  1813, 

*  Historical  Account  of  Discoveries  in  Asia,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  220. 

f  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xviii.,  p.  8. 

i  The  Middle  Kingdom,  by  S.  Wells  Williams,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  xix.,  p.  325. 

§  Missions  in  Bengal,  by  J.  J.  Weitbrecht,  ch.  v.,  p.  198. 

i  Close,  p.  9. 

1  Christianity  in  India,  by  J.  W.  Kaye,  ch.  vii.,  p.  256. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  263 

not  a  single  missionary  could  be  allowed  to  go  out  in  a  British 
ship."* 

The  Dutch,  also  Protestants,  had  been  not  less  diligent  in 
fighting  against  Christianity  in  India.  The  East  India  Com- 
pany of  Holland  peremptorily  forbade  the  admission  of  mis- 
sionaries into  any  part  of  their  territories  ;f  and  their  agents, 
consistent  in  all  their  actions,  forcibly  seized  the  Catholic 
churches  on  the  west  coast,  and  converted  them  into  factories. 
"  The  Danish  merchants  also,"  we  are  told,  "  occupied  only 
with  the  interests  of  commerce,  were  altogether  indifferent  to 
their  religious  condition.";};  Such  was  the  conduct  of  the  three 
Protestant  States  which  had  succeeded  the  Catholic  powers  in 
the  dominion  of  India.  "The  degradation  of  our  religion,"  says 
a  Protestant  writer,  "  could  scarcely  be  more  complete  in  the 
eyes  of  the  heathen. "§ 

Yet  even  this  only  faintly  represents  the  policy  of  Protestant 
governments  in  India.  It  was  possible  to  devise  still  more  ef- 
ficacious methods  of  thwarting  the  progress  of  Christianity  in 
India,  and  they  were  quickly  adopted.  "  By  government  regu- 
lations of  1814,  native  Christians  were  debarred  from  filling 
any  public  office  of  respectability.  There  is  on  record  one  in- 
stance at  least,  in  which  a  Sepoy  was  actually  dismissed  from 
the  army,  in  consequence  of  embracing  Christianity  !"||  At  a 
meeting  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society  on  the  loth  of  April, 
1813,  various  resolutions  were  passed,  of  which  the  seventh  was 
in  these  terms :  "  That  this  society  has  learnt  with  pain  that 
Christianity  is  liable  to  discouragement,  in  consequence  of  na- 
tive converts  having  been  generally  excluded  from  those  offi- 
cial situations  in  India  which  are  freely  bestowed  on  Hindoos 
and  Mahometans."  And  these  amazing  proceedings  received 
the  sanction  and  approval  of  the  most  eminent  English  states- 
men of  India  down  to  the  present  hour.  "  I  think  the  English 
government  in  this  country,"  said  Sir  John  Malcolm,  "  should 
never,  directly  or  indirectly,  interfere  in  propagating  the  Chris- 
tian religion.''^"  "  We  abstain,  and  I  trust  shall  always  abstain," 
says  an  official  document  which  bears  the  illustrious  name  of 
Lord  Macaulay,  "  from  giving  any  public  encouragement  to 
those  who  are  engaged  in'  the  work  of  converting  natives  to 
Christianity."**  In  1853,  a  director  of  the  East  India  Company, 

*  Close,  p.  27. 

Smith's  History  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  vol.  i.,  p.  206. 

Pearson's  Memoirs  of  Su/artz,  introd.,  p.  12. 

Close,  p.  27. 
I  lUd. 

*1[  Kaye's  Life  of  Sir  John  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  Correspondence,  p.  362. 
**  The  Duties  of  Great  Britain  to  India,  by  Charles  Hay  Cameron,  p.  77  ; 
Cf.,  p.  149. 


264:  CHAPTER   IIL 

and  not  the  most  obscure  amongst  them,  still  repeats:  "It  ap- 
pears to  me  absolutely  necessary  that  we  should  scrupulously 
avoid  all  interference  with  the  religion  of  the  Hindoos."* 
Lastly,  in  1859,  Lord  Ellenborough  gave  this  advice  to  the 
House  of  Lords:  "No  measure  could  be  adopted  more  calcu- 
lated to  tranquillize  the  minds  of  the  natives,  and  to  restore  to 
us  their  confidence,  than  that  of  withholding  the  aid  of  govern- 
ment from  schools  with  which  missionaries  are  connected. "f 
When  the  same  peer  charged  Lord  Canning  with  having  "sub- 
scribed to  a  missionary  society,"  Lord  Lansdowne  remarked,  in 
spite  of  strong  personal  sympathy  with  the  Indian  viceroy,  that 
if  it  were  true,  •'  he  would  no  longer  deserve  to  be  continued  in 
his  office  as  Governor-general  of  India  !"$  At  the  same  moment 
Mr.  Kinnaird  was  informing  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the 
natives  of  India,  interpreting  the  Queen's  proclamation  to  "  ab- 
stain from  all  interference"  with  their  religion  as  a  rebuke  to 
those  who  had  done  so,  urged  upon  the  local  government,  "  that 
the  missionaries  were  acting  contrary  to  the  Queen's  proclama- 
tion by  staying  in  India,  and  that  therefore  it  was  their  duty  to 
drive  them  away  at  once."§ 

In  the  presence  of  such  facts,  we  may  accept  without  diffi- 
culty the  temperate  statement  of  a  great  Indian  authority,  and 
confess,  that  "  the  conduct  of  the  English  has  not  hitherto 
tended  to  beget  a  favorable  opinion  of  their  religion  in  the 
eyes  of  the  natives ;"  especially  when  lie  adds,  from  his  own 
experience,  that  "persecution,  both  negative  and  positive,  from 
the  English  government,  from  individuals,  and  from  his  own 
countrymen,  is  what  the  native  who  becomes  a  convert  to 
Christianity  has  too  often  been  exposed  to."||  Such  is  the  al- 
most incredible  history  which  is  emphatically  epitomized  by 
Mr.  Campbell,  when  he  says,  "  For  a  very  long  period,  govern- 
ment regarded  and  treated  Christianity  as  a  most  dangerous 
innovation."*^ 

But  it  was  not  enough  for  the  power  which  now  possessed 
India  to  prefer  the  interests  of  commerce  to  those  of  religion, 
and  to  affect  infidelity  in  order  to  reign  with  greater  tranquillity 
over  a  nation  of  heathens.  It  dreaded,  indeed,  and  discoun- 
tenanced the  promotion  of  Christianity,  and  banished  or  impris- 
oned its  advocates  ;  but  it  willingly  became  the  patron  of 
every  foul  superstition  which  found  favor  with  its  new 

*  Memorials  of  Indian  Government,  by  Henry  St.  George  Tucker,  p.  483. 

f  The  Times,  April  16,  1859. 

j  The  Sepoy  Revolt,  by  Henry  Mead,  ch.  xx.,  p.  247. 

§  The  Times,  April  16,  1859. 

I  Notes  on  Indian  Affairs,  by  the  Hon.  F.  J.  Shore,  vol.  i.,  p.  458. 

Tf  India  as  it  may  be,  by  George  Campbell,  ch.  viii.,  p.  894. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  265 

subjects.  The  religion  of  Christ  might  prove  "  a  dangerous  in- 
novation," so  they  made  friendship  and  alliance  with  the  idols 
of  Hindostan.  The  history  of  that  alliance  must  be  recounted 
to  us  by  Protestants,  since  no  other  testimony  than  theirs 
would  avail  to  prove  it. 

"  In  former  days,"  they  tell  us,  "  the  connection  between  the 
government  and  the  two  chief  religions  of  India — Hindoo  and 
Mahometan — was  of  the  closest  and  most  dishonorable  kind. 
At  the  end  of  the  last  century,  the  pagodas  of  the  Madras 
Presidency  were  falling  into  decay."  It  was  the  British  gov- 
ernment which  promptly  arrested  their  ruin.  "  Juggernauth 
fell  into  the  hands  of  Lord  Wellesley,  &,ndjcrilgrim  taxes  were 
established  at  Gaya,  Puri,  and  Allahabad.  The  system  soon 
spread,  and  at  last  in  the  Madras  and  Bombay  Presidencies 
attained  a  depth  of  infamy  which  few  in  England  have  ever 
imagined.  Hundreds  of  officers  submitted  to  it  without  scruple, 
helped  to  extend  it,  and  reaped  large  g&imfrom  their  share  in 
temple  management.  We  stand  amazed  at  the  awful  degrada- 
tion to  which  the  government  descended."* 

The  government,  we  are  assured  by  another  writer,  even 
"  gave  sums  of  money,  according  to  the  request  of  the  priests, 
for  the  expenditure  of  the  ceremonies  ;"f  so  that  a  Protestant 
missionary  exclaims,  in  alluding  to  these  and  similar  facts, 
"  Christian  England  is  the  main  support  of  idolatry  in  this 
country."  "The  celebrated  Jumna  Musjid,"  says  a  recent 
English  writer,  "the  most  ancient  and  splendid  mosque  in 
Lahore,  was  converted  by  Eunjeet  Sing  into  an  arsenal.  This 
mosque,  immediately  after  the  inauguration  of  British  rule, 
was,  after  being  put  in  thorough  repair  and  order,  handed  over 
to  the  charge  of  the  principal  Mussulman  Moollahs  of  Lahore, 
to  be  restored  to  its  original  purpose  of  religious  worship  !"j 
It  is  not  easy,  therefore,  to  decide  whether  England  displayed 
most  vigor  in  violently  discountenancing  Christianity,  or  in 
liberally  maintaining  paganism  ;  nor  can  we  marvel,  when  a 
native  writer  declares,  in  1859,  while  contemptuously  scouting 
the  notion  that  his  countrymen  regarded  missionary  operations 
with  any  feeling  but  supreme  indifference — "  It  is  not  religion, 
but  the  want  of  religion,  which  has  brought  so  much  evil  to 
this  country."§ 

An  ardent  Protestant,  long  resident  in  India,  thus  records 
the  same  class  of  facts:  "The  compliances  with  both  Muham- 

*The  Eclectic,  February,  1859,  p.  141. 
f  Orissa,  by  William  F.  B.  Laurie,  p.  57. 
j  The  English  in  India,  by  Captain  Evans  Bell,  p.  31. 

§  Thoughts  of  a  Native  of  Northern  India,  quoted  by  Ludlow,  Policy  of  the 
Crown  towards  India,  Letter  xv.,  p.  201. 


CHAPTER   III. 

medan  and  Hindu  superstitions,  of  which  men  calling  them- 
selves Britons  and  officers  have  been  guilty,  are  perfectly 
marvellous.  At  Delhi  is  a  mosque  built  by  Colonel  Skinner; 
and  Englishmen  in  former  days,  under  the  influence  of  Hindu 
wives,  have  been  known  to  paint  themselves,  and  perform 
Pujah,  or  worship  at  the  river-side  like  heathens."*  We  are  not, 
therefore,  surprised  to  learn  from  General  Parlby,  that  "  it  was 
usual  for  the  highest  classes  of  society  to  accept  invitations 
from  opulent  Hindoos  *  to  festivals  in  honor  of  the  idol.'  "f 

"The  disgusting  and  gory  worship  of  Juggernaut,"  says  Mr. 
Howitt,  "  was  not  merely  practised,  but  was  actually  licensed 
and  patronized  by  the  English  government.  It  imposed  a  tax 
on  all  pilgrims  going  to  the  temples  in  Orissa  and  Bengal, 
appointed  British  ofhcers,  British  gentlemen,  to  superintend 
the  management  of  this  hideous  worship  and  the  receipt  of  its 
proceeds/';):  They  even  became  ingenious,  it  seems,  in  multi- 
plying such  sources  of  revenue ;  for  a  Protestant  missionary 
informs  us,  that  they  also  imposed  a  tax  on  those  "who  desire 
the  privilege  of  drowning  in  the  Ganges,"  and  that  this  scheme 
was  "  calculated  to  yield  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
rupees."  This  gentleman  can  hardly  be  deemed  to  exaggerate, 
when  he  adds,  that  such  proceedings  "  assimilated  professed 
Christians  with  idolaters,  till  the  Christian  character  in  India 
is  scarcely  distinguishable  even  in  the  broad  feature  of  abhorring 
idols."§  And  as  late  as  1857,  we  find  the  Protestant  bishop  of 
Carlisle  declaring,  in  a  public  address,  that  the  same  proceed- 
ings still  continue.  "  In  one  of  the  Presidencies,  for  the  sup- 
port of  idolatry  and  Mahometan  superstition,  upwards  of  fifty 
thousand  pounds  are  regularly  expended  every  year  by  this 
country  for  the  maintenance  of  that  idolatrous  and  supersti- 
tious worship.  This  is  no  negative  work.  It  is  not  a  question 
whether  we  should  have  discountenanced  it  or  not ;  but  here 
is  a  positive  and  downright  encouragement  of  it."| 

One  more  witness  to  these  singular  facts  shall  be  quoted, 
because  he  is  supposed  to  represent,  more  accurately  than  any 
other  writer,  the  opinions  of  the  majority  of  Englishmen. 
"  The  Company,"  says  this  great  authority, — beginning  with  a 
skilful  limitation, — "seems  to  have  thought  that  they  held 
their  position  in  India  upon  much  the  same  terms  as  the  Dutch 
held  their  footing  in  Japan, — by  tenure  of  trampling  on  the 

*  Six  Yea/rs  in  India,  by  Mrs.  Colin  Mackenzie,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  313. 
f  The  Establishment  of  the  Anglican  Church  in  India,  by  Major-general 
Parlby,  C.B.,  p.  115  1851). 

|  Colonization  and  Christianity,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  295. 
§  Pilgrim  Tax  in  India,  by  J.  Peggs,  missionary  at  Cuttack,  p.  41. 
|  The  Fast  Day  Sermons,  p.  59. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  267 

Cross.  Practically,  they  worshipped  those  ugly  Indian  deities 
more  servilely  than  their  own  votaries  did.  Their  only  anxiety 
was  to  induce  the  natives  to  show  them  what  they  should 
honor,  what  they  should  salute,  what  they  should  respect; 
and  they  honored,  saluted,  and  respected  accordingly.  This 
idolatry  of  other  men's  superstitions  prevalent  among  the 
officers  of  the  East  Indian  service  is  a  mania  by  no  means  yet 
extinct."*  This,  indeed,  is  the  most  wonderful  fact  of  all,— 
that  such  things  were  still  possible  in  the  year  1859.  "  Some 
time  ago,"  says  the  correspondent  of  the  Times  in  India,  "  an 
officer  inarched  down  his  regiment  to  slaughter  the  goats  sac- 
rificed on  the  occasion  of  one  of  their  festivals."  He  adds, 
that  at  these  religious  festivals  "  the  colors  were  actually  car- 
ried in  front  of  the  idols,  and  blank  cartridges  were  issued  by 
the  commanding  officer  from  the  government  magazines  !  The 
Sepoys  attended  in  full  uniform,  worshipped  the  images,  and 
called  on  them  to  bless  the  standards  and  the  arms  which 
they  bore  in  the  Company's  service."  Mr.  Russell  might  well 
say,  "  For  a  Christian  people  we  did  very  odd  things  in 
India  ;"f  and  perhaps  it  may  even  be  doubted  whether  this 
light  rebuke,  which  appears  to  have  satisfied  his  temperate 
indignation,  was  altogether  adequate  to  the  occasion. 

Other  writers,  more  impressed  by  such  facts  than  Mr.  Russell, 
though  more  familiar  with  them,  confirm  his  statement  that 
these  incredible  performances  of  Protestant  officials  are  still 
repeated  in  our  own  day.  In  1852,  the  Calcutta  Review  con- 
tained the  following  words :  "To  this  day  the  residents  at 
Nagpore  and  Baroda,  the  representatives  of  the  government, 
take  a  share  in  the  heathen  festivals.  In  the  Madras  Presi- 
dency the  evil  continues  to  a  fearful  extent.  Down  to  1841, 
more  than  four  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year  passed  through 
the  hands  of  the  Madras  government  in  connection  with  hea- 
then temples,  and  the  annual  profit  was  seventeen  thousand 
pounds. ":{:  So  that  an  Anglo-Indian  writer,  alluding  to  these 
facts,  as  well  as  to  what  he  calls  "  the  measureless  folly  of  our 
rule,"  declares,  in  1857,  that  "  had  the  Sepoys  not  rebelled,  the 
wrongs  of  India  might  have  gone  on  accumulating,  until  God 
grew  utterly  weary  of  us," -and  that  "we  should  have  been 
cast  out  from  India,  a  scorn  and  example  to  the  nations. "§ 

There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  in  the  annals  of  any  Christian 


*  The  Times,  March  16, 1859. 

f  The  Times,  April  12. 

±  The  Results  of  Missionary  Labor  in  India,  p.  47. 

§  The  Sepoy  Revolt,  Its  Causes  and  Its  Consequences,  by  Henry  Mead,  ch.  xv., 
p.  183.  An  Anglican  clergyman  relates,  in  1860,  that  an  Arab  servant,  whom  he 
employed  in  Algeria,  and  who  told  him  that  the  English  religion  was  "  next 


268  CHAPTER   III. 

people  which  can  even  be  compared,  for  enormity  of  guilt, 
with  the  conduct  of  England  during  the  first  two  centuries  of 
her  dominion  in  India.  "  The  case,"  as  one  of  her  own  clergy 
protests,  "  is  without  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  Christian 
religion."*  But  she  can  bear  burdens  which  would  break  the 
heart  of  any  other  nation  with  tranquil  composure,  and  with  an 
air  of  candid  innocence  which  would  almost  deceive  the  angels. 
It  is  true  that  she  sometimes  displays  a  calm  and  measured 
contrition.  Once  in  a  long  course  of  years  she  summons  all  her 
people,  at  the  bidding  of  some  sudden  panic,  to  keep  solemn 
fast.  On  the  appointed  day,  obedient  to  the  edict  of  her 
supreme  magistrate,  she  smites  her  breast,  not  too  rudely,  but 
with  cautious  and  lenient  hand ;  she  listens  with  grave  decorum 
to  a  preacher,  whose  discreet  admonitions  might  be  mistaken  for 
a  panegyric ;  and  then  goes  home,  with  the  cheerful  persuasion 
that  the  crimes  of  a  century  are  blotted  out.  She  has  appeased, 
by  a  suitable  effort  of  national  piety,  the  mild  and  indulgent 
divinities  to  whom  she  has  recourse  in  her  leisure  moments. 

Such  a  fast  she  kept  in  the  year  1858,  to  commemorate  all 
which  she  had  done  in  that  wide  empire  which  lies  between 
the  Indus  and  the  Ganges.  A  loud  cry  of  wailing,  a  shriek  of 
pain,  had  been  borne  through  the  air,  and  startled  the  ears  of 
all  her  people.  Then  she  fell  on  her  knees,  and  for  a  moment 
seemed  to  pray ;  the  next,  she  rose  up,  and  the  cry  which  had 
come  across  the  great  sea  waxed  fainter,  and  was  heard  no  more. 
A  few  fresh  graves,  a  few  widows  listening  for  a  voice  which 
they  shall  never  hear  again — these  were  all  the  signs  which 
remained  to  tell  that  England  had  received  another  warning. 

But  we  have  little  space  for  reflections  on  a  history  of  which 
we  have  only  heard  the  opening  chapter,  and  which  we  must 
now  pursue  to  the  end.  Two  facts  have  already  been  proved 
by  sufficient  evidence ;  the  first,  that  for  two  hundred  years 
England  resisted,  even  to  violence,  the  propagation  of  Chris- 
tianity in  India ;  the  second,  that  she  set  up  her  throne  in  the 
temples  of  idols,  and  replenished  her  exchequer  by  a  tax  on 
their  worship.  We  have  still  a  third  fact  to  consider,  before 
we  examine  the  nature  of  her  missionary  efforts,  when  she 
could  no  longer  succeed  in  repressing  them,  because  it  is  one 
which,  even  if  no  other  blight  were  upon  them,  would  ade- 
quately account  for  their  failure. 

best  to  liis  own,"  recounted  to  him  the  following  instructive  tale:  "He  had 
met  at  Constantinople  a  Hindoo  Mussulman,  who  had  told  him  how  the 

English  reverenced  the  Moslems— how  they  gave  way  to  their  faith 

Therefore  there  could  not  be  much  difference  between  us,  or  we  should  have 
destroyed  their  religion  when  we  had  the  power."     The  Great  Sahara,  by  H. 
B.  Tristram,  M.A. ;  ch.  ix.,  p.  139. 
*  Close,  p.  28. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  269 


CONDUCT   OF    THE    ENGLISH   IN   INDIA. 

"  It  is  by  means  of  the  horrid  villanies  of  Christians,"  said 
Mr.  Ziegenbalg,  a  Protestant  missionary  in  India,  "  that  the 
name  of  Christ  has  been  made  scandalous  to  a  proverb."  This 
is  the  fact  of  which  we  are  now  to  furnish  evidence. 

A  recent  writer  on  India  affirms,  mainly  as  the  result  of  per- 
sonal observation,  that  "  the  conduct  of  the  Europeans,"  which 
term  is  here  a  pleonasm  for  the  English,  "  is  such  as  to  make 
the  natives  despise  and  abhor  them."*  If  we  may  believe  one 
half  of  what  is  reported  of  that  conduct,  the  native  verdict  is 
not  deficient  in  justice.  "  We  have  visited  every  coast,"  says 
a  respectable  English  clergyman,  "  with  a  charge  indeed  to  bless, 
but — must  we  not  Confess  it  ? — in  reality  to  curse."f  "  Our 
early  settlers  were  often  men  of  intemperate  habits  and  licen- 
tious lives,"  says  the  latest  historian  of  India,  "  outraging 
decency,  and  scandalizing  Christianity.  England  herself  is 
chargeable  with  a  large  share  of  the  vices  which  her  children 
import  into  foreign  lands."  And  then  he  gives  particulars. 
"  It  was.  no  uncommon  thing  for  English  gentlemen  to  keep 
populous  Zenanas  .  .  .  honorable  marriage  was  the  exceptional 
state.":):  But  it  is  impossible  to  give  full  details  of  the  spectacle 
which  the  majority  of  Englishmen  presented  to  the  heathen  in 
their  daily  life,  and  which  might  have  made  even  the  Hindoo 
blush,  if  such  an  emotion  had  been  possible  to  him.  Most  of 
them  also  had  the  courage  to  avow  openly  the  unbelief  of 
which  their  morals  were  an  illustration.  "  Infidelity  is  too 
prevalent  in  Bengal,"§  said  Lord  Teignrnouth  writing  to  Wil- 
berforce,  so  that,  he  adds,  it  was  considered  rather  a  bold  thing 
to  acknowledge  the  truth  of  Christianity;  and  we  shall  see 
presently,  by  an  accumulation  of  perfectly  impartial  testimony, 
that  the  English  are  rapidly  communicating  this  plague  of  un- 
belief to  the  unfortunate  Hindoo. 

It  is  to  be  noted  also,  that,  far  from  recording  any  improve- 
ment, the  latest  writers  give  exactly  the  same  account  of  the 
character  of  their  countrymen  in  India  at  the  present  moment, 
which  was  given  by  others'  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  present 
century.  When  a  well-known  Protestant  missionary  visited 
Kunjeet  Singh  at  Lahore,  the  prince  addressed  him  thus : 
"You  say  you  travel  about  for  the  sake  of  religion:  why,  then, 
do  you  not  preach  to  the  English  in  Hindostan,  who  have  no 

*  Six  Years  in  India,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  333. 

f  Bampton  Lectures  for  1843,  Lect.  i.,  p.  31. 

\  Christianity  in  India,  p.  101. 

§  Life  of  Lord  Teignmouth,  by  his  Son,  vol.  i.,  p.  293. 


270  CHAPTER  III. 

religion  at  all"  And  when  the  missionary  related  the  anecdote 
to  Lord  William  Ben ti nek,  the  Governor-general  observed  : 
"This  is,  alas!  the  opinion  of  all  the  natives  all  over  India."* 
The  opinion  remains  unchanged  at  the  present  hour.  "The 
degradation  of  the  native  character,"  says  a  gentleman  who 
writes  from  Calcutta  on  the  22d  of  August,  1859,  "produced 
by  the  conduct  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  Anglo-Indians, 
cannot  fail  to  cast  a  stain  upon  our  national  character,  and  is 
the  worst  obstacle  to  the  introduction  of  Christianity.  We  have 
lowered  instead  of  raised  the  standard  of  Morality"^  We 
shall  find  the  same  complaint  of  English  influence  in  other 
lauds,  though  nowhere  in  more  earnest  language  than  has  been 
used  to  describe  its  effects  in  this:  "Of  the  Europeans  in  India 
generally,"  says  an  English  writer  in  1852,  "the  truest  account 
would  be  the  most  unfavorable.  We  have  heard  of  some  who 
regard  themselves  as  Hindus  rather  than  as  Christians  ;  of 
others  who  deemed  Muhammedan  festivals  fit  objects  for  special 
patronage;  and  of  others  who  directly  counteracted  the  instruc- 
tions of  missionaries,  by  advising  young  men  not  to  become 
Christians,  and  teaching  them  that  Deism  was  the  true  religion 
for  men.  We  have  heard,  too,  of  thousands  who  lived  as 
though  they  regarded  gentleness,  mercy,  and  spiritual  worship 
less  than  the  heathen  by  whom  they  are  surrounded.";); 

There  are  certain  maxims  implanted  in  the  heart  of  man  at 
his  creation, — certain  instincts  which  inform  and  guide  the 
heathen  as  well  as  the  Christian, — certain  desires  and  aspira- 
tions which  lend  dignity  even  to  the  Hindoo;  and  all  these,  we 
are  told  by  fifty  Protestant  writers,  of  various  sects,  have  been 
systematically  outraged  by  the  English  in  India.  Of  all  the 
sentiments  with  which  they  have  inspired  the  Asiatic  tribes,  in 
spite  of  their  affected  humility,  perhaps  none  is  so  universal, 
none  so  intense,  as  the  feeling  of  scorn  and  contempt.  Ludi- 
crous examples  are  sometimes  given  by  Indian  writers  of  the 
mode  in  which  they  privately  vent  the  disgust  which  they  dare 
not  openly  manifest.  Thus,  at  a  great  banquet,  given  by  a 
wealthy  civilian,  who  had  a  splendid  establishment,  "  was  ex- 
tremely particular  about  high-caste  servants,  and  treated  them 
magnificently,"  the  host  went  to  the  kitchen  to  see  why  the 
dinner  was  delayed.  "  There  he  found  all  his  servants  stand- 
ing in  a  row,  with  their  backs  towards  him,  each  man  proving 
his  orthodoxy  by  solemnly  spitting  in  rotation  on  a  fine  ham, 
which  was  about  to  be  served  up  to  the  company. "§  But 

*  Travels  and  Adventures  of  Dr.  Wolff,  cli.  xxi.,  p.  375. 
|  Naval  and  Military  Gazette,  p.  635,  October  1,  1859. 
$  The  Results  of  Missionary  Labur  in  India,  p.  7. 
§  Mackenzie's  Six  Years  in  India  vol.  ii.  ch.  v.,  p.  140. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  271 

we  should  err  in  supposing  that  it  is  always,  or  even  commonly, 
religious  feeling  which  inspires  such  acts.  They  are  often  only 
the  expression  of  angry  contempt.  The  Hindoo  judges  his 
master  by  precisely  the  same  estimate  which  the  latter  applies 
to  him.  He  is  not  slow  to  appreciate  those  who,  whatever  their 
defects  may  be,  have  the  qualities  of  men.  He  can  esteem,  and 
even  love,  a  statesman  like  Lawrence,  or  a  soldier  like  Jacob  or 
Hodson.  But  when  he  is  outraged  in  all  his  instincts  by 
tyrannical  triflers, — by  masters  who  have  survived  the  age  but 
not  the  manners  of  school-boys, — who  have  none  even  of  the 
external  dignity  which  orientals  so  highly  esteem  and  so  rarely 
violate;  when  he  is  daily  in  contact  with  so-called  Christians, 
whom  even  his  gross  nature  despises  as  coarse,  vicious,  and 
trivial,  and  whose  religious  teachers  are  to  him  only  types  of 
vanity,  ignorance,  and  worldliness  ;  is  it  wonderful  that  at  times 
his  pent-up  scorn  and  hate  should  overflow,  and  madden  him 
to  acts  of  violence  and  blood  ? 

It  was  this  mingled  loathing  and  disdain  which  culminated 
at  last  in  the  great  Sepoy  rebellion,  and  which  is  too  charac- 
teristic of  the  influence  of  Protestant  England  among  pagan 
nations  not  to  merit  fuller  illustration. 

That  "  the  terrible  disaster  of  1857  revealed  the  rapidly  grow- 
ing bitterness  against  English  officers,"*  is  affirmed  even  by  the 
more  intelligent  of  their  own  number.  Colonel  Hunter,  repeat- 
ing words  used  by  Sir  John  Malcolm  fifty  years  earlier,  confesses 
with  sorrow  "  the  feelings  of  disgust  and  sometimes  of  bitter 
contempt  entertained  by  the  natives  towards  their  English 
chiefs.f  "The  mass  of  the  English  officers,  loth  civil  and 
military"  says  Captain  Evans  Bell,  "  detract  from  the  moral 
strength  of  England  in  India,  lower  the  native  ideal  standard 
of  English  ability  and  honor,  and  introduce  an  element  of 
insolence,  contempt,  and  tyranny,  which  is  most  dangerous  to 
our  power,  and  derogatory  to  our  national  character.  The  same 
great  vice  pervades  our  entire  system.''  It  is  the  influx  of 
coarse  and  vulgar  triflers,  in  both  services,  which  "  has  led  to 
the  establishment  of  the  '  damned  nigger '  system  in  every 
department,  civil  and  military.  Boys  just  emancipated  from 
school,  who  care  for  nothing  but  beer  and  billiards,  whose  very 
ignorance  of  their  language  and  customs  makes  them  dislike 
and  despise  their  native  subordinates,  are  placed  in  charge  of 
companies  of  Sepoys !"  And  so,  when  the  revolt  began  which 
perilled  our  Indian  Empire,  and  which,  we  may  be  sure,  is  only 
the  precursor  of  similar  outbreaks,  "the  European  officers 

*  The  English  in  India,  p.  113. 

f  Ludlow,  Thoughts  on  the  Policy  of  the  Grown,  Letter  xxii.,  p.  299. 


272  CHAPTER   III. 

showed  themselves  to  have  no  commanding  or  restraining 
power  over  their  men,  and  were  invariably,  up  to  the  last 
moment,  utterly  ignorant  of  their  men's  intention  and  views."* 
"They  have  awakened,"  says  a  native,  "even  the  dreamy 
Asiatic  to  anger,  and  have  literally  compelled  even  the  Hindu, 
proverbially  meek  and  patient  as  he  is,  to  revolt."f 

From  every  side  we  receive  the  same  evidence.  The  Santals, 
numbering  about  two  hundred  thousand,  and  described  as 
"  naturally  a  quiet,  teachable  people,"  but  absolutely  void  of 
religion,  are  in  danger  of  adopting  the  abominable  superstitions 
of  the  Hindoo,  out  of  sheer  contempt  for.  the  English.  "  Until 
lately,"  says  an  English  clergyman,  "  the  Santal  felt  the 
greatest  reverence  for  the  European ;  but  contact  with  the  latter 
....  has  tended  greatly  to  diminish  his  esteem  for  his  English 
rulers.  A /few  words  spoken  by  an  Englishman  some  years 
ago  would  probably  have  produced  more  effect  than  weeks  of 
earnest  labor  would  now  be  able  to  excite;  so  that  it  is 
manifestly  our  duty  not  to  wait  till  the  last  remnant  of  respect 
for  Europeans  has  left  the  Santal's  breast."^ 

Mr.  Russell  has  illustrated,  in  the  most  striking  passage  of 
his  book  on  India,  the  feeling  of  the  native  towards  men  who 
are  often,  in  spite  of  their  profession  of  Christianity,  both 
morally  and  intellectually  his  inferiors.  Speaking  of  the  riotous 
banquets  of  British  officers,  he  says :  "  The  native  servants 
stand  in  perfect  apathy  and  quiescence,  with  folded  arms,  and 
eyes  gazing  on  vacancy  as  if  in  deep  abstraction,  and  at  all 
events  feigning  complete  ignorance  of  what  is  going  on  around 
them."  Yet  the  Hindoo  menial,  less  degraded  than  his  master, 
is  busy  with  silent  comments  on  the  ignoble  scene.  "  A  native 
gentleman,"  to  whom  Mr.  Russell  addressed  an  inquiry  on  this 
subject,  gave  him  the  following  information : 

•"  I  will  speak  the  truth,  if  the  Sahib  will  not  be  displeased 
at  it." 

"  Well,  pray  speak.  I  am  certain  that  you  will  not  willingly 
offend  us." 

"  Does  the  Sahib  see  those  monkeys  ?  They  are  playing 
very  pleasantly.  But  the  Sahib  cannot  say  why  they  play,  nor 
what  they  are  going  to  do  next.  Well,  then,  our  poor  people 
look  upon  you  very  much  as  they  would  on  those  monkeys ;  but 
they  know  you  are  very  fierce  and  strong,  and  would  be  angry 
if  you  were  laughed  at.  They  are  afraid  to  laugh.  But  they 
do  regard  you  as  some  great  powerful  creature  sent  to  plague 

*  Pp.  3-5. 

Causes  of  the  Indian  Revolt,  p.  23  (1857). 

Report  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  1862,  p.  104. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  273 

them,  of  whose  motives  and  actions  they  can  comprehend 
nothing  whatever."* 

It  is  curious  to  lind  a  British  officer  recording  exactly  the 
same  verdict,  pronounced  by  West  African  natives,  upon  his 
military  colleagues  in  that  remote  spot.  "  The  Mahometans," 
says  Major  Gordon  Laing,  "  view  with  pity,  and  frequently 
with  disgust,  the  levity  of  the  whites;"  and  then  noticing  a 
particular  case,  in  which  some  of  these  semi-savages  had  been 
listening  outside  a  mess-room  to  English  officers  "huzzaing" 
over  their  cups,  he  adds :  "  The  Mandingoes  all  concurred  in 
one  remark,  which  was  thus  expressed  :  '  Great  God  !  since  my 
birth  I  never  saw  such  Kafirs  as  the  white  men  !'  "t 

But  there  is  more  to  be  said  on  this  subject,  and  on  the  im- 
pression produced  upon  the  natives  by  English  Protestants  in 
India.  "  Most  Europeans,"  we  are  told,  "  treat  the  natives 
more  like  brutes  than  men.";):  Even  "  the  children  catch  up 
the  strain.  I  have  heard  one,  five  years  old,  call  the  man  who 
was  taking  care  of  him  a  '  black  brute,'  and  a  <  black  rascal.'  "§ 
And  one  who  has  had  ample  experience  of  Indian  life,  and  who 
gives  painful  instances  of  such  brutality  even  on  the  part  of  u  old 
officers,  who  ought  to  have  set  a  better  example,"  tells  us  that 
the  natives  say,  "  We  would  rather  be  as  we  are  than  change  to 
a  religion  of  which  the  professors  give  us  such  poor  specimens 
of  their  sincerity."!  Even  the  missionaries  shock  them,  not 
only  by  the  "  barbarous  jargon,"  as  Mr.  Irving  observes,  which 
most  of  them  speak,  but  by  the  luxury  and  worldliness  of  their 
lives.  When  the  Rev.  Mr.  Perceval  invited  a  learned  Hindoo 
to  eat  as  the  English  do,  he  answered  in  these  words :  "  We 
Hindoos  do  not  bury  the  dead  in  our  stomachs  ;  we  do  not  make 
our  stomachs  into  burial-grounds."!"  Even  the  Kandyans,  low 
as  they  are  in  the  scale  of  civilization,  are  revolted  by  their 
want  of  temperance,  and  call  them  "  beef-eating  slaves  ;"** 
while  the  Afghans  consider  them  "a  white-faced,  pig-eating 
race  of  infidels,  who  are  very  fond  of  fighting  and  drinking, 
and  appropriating  other  people's  countries."ff 

It  was  in  order  not  to  shock  such  prejudices,  which  are  only 
a  corruption  of  the  great  Christian  law  of  mortification,  that  the 
Catholic  missionaries  cheerfully  acquiesced  in  a  life  of  unvarying 

*  Diary  in  India,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  149. 

f  Travels  in  Western  Africa,  by  Major  Alexander  Gordon  Laing,  p.  889. 
\  Mackenzie,  ch.  iii.,  p.  79. 

§  Observations  on  India,  by  a  Resident  there  many  years,  p.  149  (1853). 
I  Ten  Years  in  India,  by  Captain  Albert  Hervey,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  104. 
1  The  Land  of  the  Veda,  ch.  xii.,  p.  272. 

**  Ceylon;  An  Historical  Sketch;  by  Henry  Marshall,  F.R.S.E.,  Deputy  In- 
Bpector-general  of  Army  Hospitals,  p.  83. 

ft  Journal  of  a  Mission  to  Afghanistan  in  1857  by  H.  W.  Bellew,  ch.  v.,  p.  274. 

19 


274:  CHAPTER    III. 

austerity.  "It  is  absolutely  necessary,"  says  one  of  thorn,  "to 
embrace  this  manner  of  life  in  order  to  produce  any  fruit,  since 
these  people  have  the  conviction  that  they  who  are  the  teachers 
and  guides  of  others  should  themselves  lead  the  most  perfect 
life."*  "  We  eat  a  little  meat  when  we  are  in  the  South,"  says 
a  modern  missionary,  "  but  in  the  North  we  must  endeavor  to 
dispense  with  it,  for  the  pagans  never  eat  it  publicly,  and  pro- 
fess the  utmost  abhorrence  for  the  carnivorous  propensities  of 
Europeans."f  Even  this  sacrifice  the  English  missionary  de^. 
clines  to  make,  although,  as  Dr.  Grant  forcibly  observes,  ''  the 
ability  'to  endure  hardness'  in  a  practical  way,  unthought  of 
now-a-days,  seems  to  me  indispensable;"  and  then  he  adds, 
"  Missionaries  have  told  me  that  the  idea  which  the  natives 
have  of  them  is,  that  they  merely  work  for  their  pay."£ 

"  The  English  missionaries,"  said  Jacquemont  long  ago,  "  are 
astonished  that  they  make  no  conversions  !  They  have  wives, 
horses,  servants ;  they  inhabit  a  commodious  mansion,  and  call 
themselves  missionaries!  But  there  are  other  missionaries,  who 
traverse  the  country  on  foot,  and  with  naked  feet,  to  convert  the 
heathen.  They  have  converted  numbers,  and  continue  to  do  so. 
They  imitate  the  example  of  the  Apostles,  and  not  rarely  they 
share  their  success  also."§  M.  Barchou  de  Penhoen  makes  the 
same  observation  at  a  later  date  :  "  Husband  and  father,  linked 
to  all  the  interests  of  the  world,  the  Protestant  minister  cannot 
be  a  soldier  of  the  faith,  a  crusader  of  the  Gospel."[  He  has 
chosen  a  lower  calling,  and  even  his  co-religionists  acknowledge, 
however  unwillingly,  that  the  heathen  despise  masters  who  are 
only  men  like  themselves.  Let  us  hear  once  more  how  even 
English  writers  judge  their  own  countrymen. 

"  England's  remaining  combat  must  be,"  says  Mr.  Raikes, 
"not  only  with  the  cunning,  the  ignorance,  the  superstition  of  her 
Eastern  children,  but  with  the  pride,  the  sloth,  and  the  selfish- 
ness of  her  own  sons. "If  And  there  is  nothing  superfluous  in 
the  admonition.  "The  haughty  superciliousness,"  Mr.  Shore 
observes,  "  the  arrogance,  and  even  insolence  of  behavior,  which 
the  generality  of  the  English  think  it  necessary  to  adopt  towards 

*  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  x.,  p.  282.  "  Vestra  siquidem  castitas,"  wrote  a 
General  of  the  Society  to  the  Jesuits  in  India,  "  non  tantum  ad  propriam  per- 
fectionem,  vel  opem  proximo  qualemcunque  suppeditandam  refertur ;  sed  eo 
etiam  penetrat,  ut  vos  idoneas  reddat  operas,  quse  apostolice  discurrant  ad 
gen  tee  vinculis,  quibus  implicates  sunt,  exsolvendas."  Claude  Aquaviva,  Epist. 
Prcepos.  General  ad  Patres  et  Fratres  Soc.  Jew,  p.  252  (Romae  1615). 

Annals,  vol.  i.,p.!73. 

Bampton  Lectures,  app.,  p.  816. 

i  Quoted  by  De  Warren,  L'Inde  Anglaise,  tome  iii.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  230. 

LInde  SOILS  la  domination  Anglaise,  tome  ii.,  liv.  viii.,  p.  134. 

[  Notes  on  the  Northwestern  Provinces  of  India,  by  Charles  Raikes,  Collec- 
tor of  Mynpoorie,  p.  77  (1852). 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  275 

the  natives,  by  way  of  keeping  up  their  own  dignity,  is  extremely 
great."*  And  innumerable  writers  repeat  the  same  reproach. 
"  It  is  in  India'  especially,"  says  Count  Edouard  de  Warren, 
once  an  officer  in  the  British,  service,  "  that  the  certainty  of 
impunity  encourages  them  to  commit  such  insolence  and  such 
oppression  as  might  make  the  angels  weep."f  ISTo  wonder  if  it 
exasperates  the  Hindoo,  or  if  the  educated  native  bitterly  resents 
the  ignorant  incapacity  of  "youthful  students,  fresh  from  Hailey- 
bury  College,  possessing  nothing  more  than  a  smattering  of  the 
native  language,":);  for  as  Mr.  Lang  observes,  even  as  late  as 
1859,  "  not  one  civilian  in  a  hundred,  no  matter  what  his  rank 
or  grade,  can  read  and  write  Hindostanee  or  Persian. "§  "A 
century  and  more  of  intercourse,"  says  a  Bengal ese  Hindoo  in 
1857,  "  has  not  made  the  Hindu  and  the  Englishman  friends, 
nor  even  peaceful  fellow-subjects.  Day  by  day  the  estrangement 
is  becoming  more  and  more  complete.  That  is  your  fault."! 
And  a  year  later,  a  Protestant  clergyman  confirms  the  verdict  of 
the  Hindoo,  and  once  more  declares,  that  "  a  hundred  years  of 
inexpressible  misrule  are  answerable  for  it."T  Is  it  surprising 
that  the  Indian  should  "earnestly  entreat"  such  teachers  of 
religion  as  he  daily  sees,  "  to  begin  by  converting  the  Chris- 
tians £"**  especially  when  he  so  thoroughly  appreciates  their  real 
character,  that  Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan  could  say,  writing  from 
India  to  a  friend 'at  Cambridge:  "Your  profession  of  the 
Christian  religion  is  a  proverbial  jest  throughout  the 


THE   FIRST   ANGLICAN   MISSIONARIES   NOT   ENGLISH. 

We  have  now  sufficiently  prepared  the  way  for  the  important 
inquiry  which  we  are  next  to  pursue.  It  is  time  to  enter  into 
the  actual  details  of  Protestant  missionary  eiforts  in  India,  to 
interrogate,  the  agents  employed  in  them,  and  to  determine,  by 

*  Notes  on  Indian  Affairs,  vol.  i.,  p.  10. 

f  L'Inde  Anglaise,  tome  iii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  257. 

i  The  Civil  Administration  of  the  Bombay  Presidency,  by  Nowrosjee  Fur- 
doonjee,  Interpreter  to  H.M.  Supreme  Court,  p.  31  (1853). 

§  Wanderings  in  India,  p.  213. 

|  Causes  of  the  Indian  Revolt',  by  a  Hindu  of  Bengal ;  edited  by  Malcolm 
Lewin,  Esq. ;  p.  21.  In  1862,  an  English  Protestant  lady  relates,  once  more,  the 
following  anecdote  of  an  "  honest  moonshee,"  who  "had  been  reading  a  transla- 
tion of  Mill's  History  of  India."  "On  one  present  suggesting  to  him  that  his 
countrymen  all  hated  the  English,  he  bent  his  eyes  to  the  ground,  and  smiled  a 
decorous  assent.  '  The  Book/  said  he, '  of  your  nation  is  excellent ;  it  inculcates 
meekness,  charity,  and  gentleness ;  but  we  seek  these  qualities  in  vain  in  the 
character  of  the  English.' "  Our  Last  Tears  in  India,  by  Mrs.  J.  B.  Speech 
vi.,  p.  131. 

1"  The  Indian  Religions,  by  an  Indian  Missionary ;  ch.  xix.,  p.  157  (1858). 

**  Murray's  Discoveries  in  Asia,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  224. 

ff  Pearson's  Memoirs  of  Buchanan,  vol.  i.,  p.  183. 


276  CHAPTER   III. 

their  own  testimony,  the  results  of  their  labors.  As  the 
English  did  nothing  whatever  towards  the  conversion  of  the 
Hindoos  for  nearly  two  hundred  years,  we  must  put  them  out 
of  sight  for  a  moment,  and  begin  by  some  notice  of  the  Ger- 
mans and  Danes,  who  at  all  events  attempted  the  work  which 
the  masters  of  the  country  declined  to  undertake,  or  only  de- 
sired to  obstruct  and  defeat. 

We  are  told  by  Protestant  writers  that  for  a  very  long  period 
"  the  assistance  afforded  by  the  Society  for  Promoting  Christian 
Knowledge  to  the  Danish  Lutheran  missions,  was  the  only 

Eublic  effort  that  was  made  by  members  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
ind  to  extend  the  knowledge  of  the  Gospel  beyond  the  limits 
of  professing  Christendom."*  This  singular  fact  was  noticed 
in  his  day  by  Lord  Teignmouth  with  the  following  comment: 
"  It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance,  that  in  the  history  of  those 
who  have  devoted  themselves  to  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel 
among  nations  where  it  was  unknown,  the  names  of  divines  of 
the  Church  of  England  rarely,  if  ever,  occur."f  The  complaint 
is  still  repeated  in  our  own  day.  "  Our  young  men,"  says  Dr. 
Tait,  Protestant  Bishop  of  London,  "  are  ever  ready  to  go  forth 
to  distant  portions  of  the  globe  for  any  secular  object,  but  a 
difficulty  is  felt  in  inducing  them  to  go  in  the  cause  of  the 
Gospel. "J  In  India,  the  Anglican  Church  was  obliged  to 
employ  Danish  and  German  Lutherans  as  her  representatives, 
because  her  own  members  declined  to  accept  the  office.  Indeed 
it  may  be  reasonably  doubted  whether  she  would  ever  have 
undertaken  missionary  work  at  all,  but  for  the  activity  of  the 
various  sects  to  which  she  had  given  birth.  It  was  not  till 
these  hostile  bodies,  whose  very  existence  was  for  the  most  part 
a  protest  against  her  own  apathy,  began  to  fill  the  world  with 
the  clamor  of  their  ceaseless  conflicts,  that  the  English  estab- 
lishment awoke  from  the  slumber  which  they  rudely  disturbed, 
and  consented  to  wage  in  self-defence,  and  in  other  lands,  the 
war  which  she  could  no  longer  confine  to  her  own. 

In  India  her  apparition  appears  to  have  been  even  more  tardy 
than  elsewhere.  "  No  English  clergyman  could  be  prevailed 
upon  to  go  thither,"  says  Dr.  Close ;  who  repeats  the  statement 
that  "all  the  missionaries  helped  by  the  Christian  Knowledge 
Society," — and,  he  might  have  added,  by  what  is  called  the 
"  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel," — "  were  Luther- 
ans and  foreign ers."§  We  shall  presently  hear  these  foreign 
emissaries  taunting  their  Anglican  employers  with  the  fact,  and 

*  The  Missionary  Crisis,  by  the  Rev.  A.  Dallas,  p.  6. 

f  Life,  vol.  ii,  p.  116. 

J  Quoted  in  the  Times,  February  10, 1860. 

§  Close,  p.  20. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  277 

using  it  to  justify  their  attacks  upon  a  Church  of  which,  not- 
withstanding, they  were  the  recognized  ministers !  "  For  a 
long  time,"  Dr.  Close  informs  us,  "  they  could  not  get  a  single 
missionary  to  go  out.  They  sent  an  English  clergyman  to  Cal- 
cutta in  1789,  but  he  deserted  soon  after  his  arrival."  This 
was  discouraging,  and  so,  "  in  1797,  they  sent  another,  a  Ger- 
man, but  he  also  deserted."*  Yet  there  was  urgent  need  for 
active  measures,  since,  up  to  this  date,  Mr.  Kaye  tells  us, 
"the  Protestant  religion  made  scant  progress  in  India.  There 
were  occasionally  conversions, — but,  unhappily,  .they  were  en- 
tirely in  the  wrong  direction."  And  then  he  explains  that 
some  of  the  English  became  Catholics,  like  the  son  of  Sir 
Heneage  Finch,  and  some  Mahometans  !f  "So  alarmed  was 
the  government,"  says  an  Anglican  chaplain  in  India,  "  at  the 
progress  of  Romanism,  that  they  resolved  to  enforce  against 
its  professors  the  penal  statute,  Twenty-third  Elizabeth,  chapter 
L ;  and  having  discovered  that  one  John  da  Gloria,  a  Portu- 
guese priest,  had  baptized  Matthew,  son  of  Lieutenant  Thorpe, 
deceased,  they  arrested  him  on  a  charge  of  high  treason,  for 
procuring  a  person  to  be  reconciled  to  the  Pope."J 

These  events,  however,  do  not  appear  to  have  removed  the 
repugnance  of  "  divines  of  the  Church  of  England"  to  mission- 
ary work.  "  It  must  be  acknowledged  with  shame,"  observes 
Dr.  Grant,  "  that  whatever  more  cheering  conquests  have  been 
gained  in  India,  have  been  effected  by  German  missionaries ; 
.  ...  in  vain  do  we  look  for  one  name  in  the  annals  of  our 
Church  shining  with  the  illustrious  title  of  Apostle  to  the 
Heathen."  And  again :  "  By  far  the  ablest  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries in  connection  with  the  Church  of  England  have, 
throughout,  been  not  Germans  only,  out  Lutherans.  In  1842 
the  number  of  Lutheran  ministers  on  the  list  of  the  Church 
Missionary  Society  amounted  to  twelve;  and  to  judge  from 
the  names  of  those  in  its  employ,  above  forty  are  either  Germans 
or  of  German  extraction. "§  The  fact  is  confirmed,  up  to  the 
year  1853,  by  another  English  writer,  who  says:  "As  there 
are  more  candidates  for  mission  work  in  Germany  than  there 
are  in  the  Church  of  England,  the  latter  is  glad  to  avail  herself 
of  the  services  of  Lutheran  ministers,  whom  she  ordains  and 
adopts  as  her  own."|  And  so  permanent  is  the  disinclination 
for  missionary  work,  except  as  a  means  of  promotion,  that  even 

*  Close,  p.  11. 

f  Christianity  in  India,  ch.  ii.,  p.  56. 

i  The  English  in  Western  India,  by  Philip  Anderson,  A.M.,  one  of  the  Hon. 
Cys.  Chaplains,  ch.  iv.,  p.  145. 
§  Lect.  i.,  p.  13. 
Six  Years  in  India,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  152. 


278  CHAPTER   III. 

as  late  as  October,  1859,  we  still  find  one  of  the  ablest  organs 
of  the  Establishment  bitterly  resenting  the  fact.  "  It  ought  to 
put  England's  Church  to  the  blush  to  see  all  kinds  of  temporal 
advantages  and  inducements  held  out,  as  a  kind  of  bait,  to  men 
to  induce  them  to  condescend  to  take  upon  them  the  apostolic 
office  of  .missionary  to  the  heathen."* 

Some  curious  results  have  followed,  as  might  have  been  an- 
ticipated, from  the  habitual  employment  by  the  Church  of 
England  of  missionaries,  who,  though  they  consent  to  serve 
her,  flatly  deny  many  of  the  gravest  doctrines  which  she  main- 
tains, at  least  nominally,  to  be  a  part  of  revealed  truth,  and 
even  laugh  at  the  "  orders''  which,  together  with  their  salaries, 
she  induces  them  to  accept.  "  There  is  scarcely  an  orthodox 
Christian  in  the  Lutheran  Church,"  says  Dr.  Joseph  Wolff,  who 
had  a  considerable  acquaintance  with  that  institution,  and  who 
explains  the  eagerness  of  German  missionaries  to  accept  their 
position  by  observing, — that  "many  tinners  and  shoemaker 
journeymen,  not  able  to  go  on  with  their  profession,  go  to 
Basle  under  the  pretext  of  being  converted,  in  order  to  become 
missionaries."  Dr.  Wolff  regrets  also  that  "they  learn  to  live 
luxuriously,"  and  even  -that  "  the  way  in  which  workmen  of 
different  descriptions  are  taken  up,  ordained  ministers,  and 
sent  out  as  missionaries,  merely  because  they  can  speak  a  little 
on  the  subject  of  religion,  has  frequently  turned  to  the  de- 
struction of  their  own  souls,  by  puffing  them  up  with  pride,  "f 
However,  as  the  Church  of  England  could  procure  no  others, 
she  sent  German  and  Danish  Lutherans,  a  few  of  whom,  con- 
fining ourselves  to  the  most  conspicuous,  we  will  now  observe 
at  their  work. 


THE   LUTHERAN-ANGLICAN   MISSIONARIES. 

The  only  names  which  have  any  claim  to  our  notice  are 
those  of  Kiernander,  Ziegenbalg,  Kohloff,  Rhenius,  and 
Schwartz ;  upon  each  of  whom,  except  the  last,  a  very  few 
words  will  suffice,  because  they  will  exhaust  their  meagre  and 
unprofitable  history. 

Mr.  Kiernander,  whose  "chivalrous  and  romantic  career" 
excites  the  admiration  of  Dr.  Close,  apparently  because  he 
"  walked  in  silver  slippers,";);  was  the  friend  of  Clive,  and 
"  was  smiled  upon  by  governors  and  councils,  and  even  by  the 
directors  at  home."  The  Dean  of  Carlisle  thinks  that  the 

*  Christian  Remembrancer,  p.  382. 
f  Wolff's  Journal,  p.  332. 
|  Indian  Retrospect,  p.  11. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  279 

labors  of  this  "  rich  and  fashionable  missionary"  were  "  not 
without  spiritual  fruit."  Let  us  inquire,  then,  how  he  became 
rich,  and  what  were  his  labors.  We  shall  quote,  according  to 
our  custom,  only  Protestant  authorities. 

"The  English  had  driven  away  the  Portuguese  Catholics, 
and  Kiernander  was  put  in  possession  of  their  church,  which 
was  commodious  and  airy."*  Such  was  the  beginning  of  this 
gentleman's  career,  who  was  now  appointed  "English  Chaplain" 
at  Fort  William,  but  who  had  never  the  slightest  pretension  to 
the  title  of  "missionary,"  with  which  he  has  been  superfluously 
decorated.  The  chaplain  at  Fort  William  next  married  "  a 
lady  with  a  sufficient  dowry,"  with  whom  he  had  been  accus- 
tomed, we  are  told,  to  exchange  significant  glances  from  his 
reading-desk  or  pulpit,  so  that  his  congregation  had  confidently 
predicted  the  matrimonial  climax  which  ensued.  This  lady 
unfortunately  died,  and  Kiernander  sought  consolation  else- 
where. "A  similar  religious  love-making  to  that  which  had 
united  him  to  Werdena  Fischer,"  says  his  admiring  biographer, 
"  made  him  triumph  over  the  yielding  heart  of  Mrs.  Ann 
Wooley,  a  wealthy  widow."  She  also  had  frequented  the 
church  at  Fort  William,  from  which  the  Catholics  had  been 
expelled  to  make  room  for  her  suitor;  and  in  that  church,  once 
used  for  other  purposes,  a  second  courtship  found  a  "  commo- 
dious" field  of  action,  and  terminated  as  prosperously  as  the 
first.  The  lady,  we  are  told,  "was  fat  and  unwieldy,"  but  this 
inconsiderable  drawback  did  not  arrest  Mr.  Kiernander,  for  "  by 
this  marriage  he  acquired  about  twenty-five  thousand  pounds," 
and  money  bore  a  high  rate  of  interest  in  India.  "He  was  now 
enabled  to  keep  a  splendid  table  and  to  live  in  a  superb  house." 
The  "  excellence  of  his  wines"  was  famed  even  in  England, 
"  and  reports  soon  reached  the  Society  in  England  of  the 
luxurious  living  of  their  missionary,  nor  was  the  frequency  of 
his  entertainments  forgotten."  But  this  was  pure  malevolence, 
for,  as  his  generous  biographer  adds,  "  there  was  no  defection 
from  his  high  calling  in  these  hospitalities,"  and  the  rich  and 
fashionable  missionary  was  still  u  intent  on  imparting  the 
sacred  truths  of  Christianity."  Which  of  those  truths  his  own 
manner  of  life  specially  illustrated,  the  biography  does  not  ex- 
plain. Perhaps  St.  Paul  would  rather  have  approved  the  rice 
and  bitter  herbs  which  formed  the  sole  diet  of  a  St.  Francis,  a 
Borghese,  a  Mamiani,  and  others;  though  they  were  members, 
unlike  Kiernander,  of  the  highest  order  of  nobility,  and  had 
abandoned,  what  he  never  possessed,  rank,  dignities,  and 
honors,  for  the  love  of  Him  who  became  poor  for  their  sakes. 

*  Asiatic  Journal,  New  Series,  vol.  xv.,  pp.  67  et  seq. 


280  CHAPTER  III. 

But  the  fabulous  prosperity  of  the  chaplain  at  Fort  William 
was  not  destined  to  last  long.  Costly  wines  and  frequent  en- 
tertainments have  ruined  ampler  fortunes  than  his  ;  and  so, 
having  done  honor  to  many  a  banquet,  and  sorely  mutilated 
many  a  text,  and  otherwise  acted  in  a  manner  altogether  worthy 
of  his  "  high  calling,"  he  reverted  to  his  first  estate,  came  to 
poverty  and  a  dishonorable  old  age,  and  departed  out  of  this 
life.  Neither  Hindoo  nor  Mahometan  had  learned  from  his 
lips  the  way  of  truth,  and  even  if  they  had  been  conversant 
with  his  somewhat  jovial  career,  were  not  likely  to  have  been 
much  impressed  by  it. 

Of  Ziegenbalg  but  little  need  be  said,  for  it  does  not  appear 
that  his  life  supplies  any  material  for  history.  He  does  not 
even  profess  to  have  succeeded  in  converting  the  heathen, 
though  he  seems  to  have  complained,  with  reason,  that  u  the 
hindrances  resulting  from  the  vicious  lives  of  Christians  in 
these  parts,  besotted  with  the  pursuit  of  pleasures  and  riches," 
were  fatal  to  any  such  attempt. 

Of  Kohloff  also  there  is  nothing  more  impressive  to  report 
than  what  the  biographer  of  Schwartz  relates  of  him,  as  if  it 
summed  up  the  whole  of  his  career:  "Kohloff  lived  to  see  his 
son  diligently  engaged  in  the  English  mission,  and  the  rest  of 
his  family  comfortably  provided  for."* 

The  missionary  career  of  Mr.  Rhenius  deserves  more  notice, 
on  account  of  the  lively  illustration  which  it  affords  of  the  in- 
convenience of  employing  Lutheran  ministers  as  clergymen  of 
the  Church  of  England.  In  this  respect  it  is  curious  and  in- 
structive. "  Rhenius,  with  some  of  his  German  coadjutors," 
says  Blumhardt,  u  broke  off  his  connection  with  the  Church 
Missionary  Society  ;"f  and  Mr.  Rhenius  tells  us  himself,  with 
great  plainness  of  speech,  why  he  did  so.  He,  like  so  many  of 
his  countrymen,  —  not  in  India  only,  but  in  Europe,  Africa,  and 
America,  in  which  latter  country  the  Established  Church  em- 
ployed Dutch  Calvinists  to  do  its  work,:):  —  was  a  clergyman  of 
the  Church  of  England  ;  but  he  did  not  conceive  that  this 
superficial  tie  obliged  him  to  accept  her  doctrine.  He  wrote, 
therefore,  with  considerable  vehemence  against  that  Church  ; 
and  so  popular  were  his  invectives  among  his  colleagues,  that 
'•  live  episcopally  ordained  missionaries"  of  Tinnevelly  signed 
their  names  to  the  declaration,  u  there  is  no  episcopal  feeling 
And  so,  when  he  was  accused  of  insubordination,  he 


*  Pearson's  Memoirs  of  Schwartz,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  129. 
f  Blumhardt,  Christian  Missions,  p.  39. 

I  Discoveries  of  the  English  in  America,  in  Pinkerton's  Collection,  vol.  xii., 
p.  413. 
§  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xvi  ,  p.  164. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  281 

gave  the  following  triumphant  reply  :  "  I  was  in  nowise  bound 
to  the  Church  of  England,  but  came  out  to  the  mission-field  in 
the  capacity  of  a  Lutheran  clergyman,  just  like  the  many 
German  missionaries  who,  before  me,  had  been  sent  out  to 
India  by  the  Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowledge." 
And  then  he  adds,  with  calm  indifference  :  "  I  published  a 
little  book,  pointing  out  certain  errors  in  the  forms  of  the 
Church  of  England,  in  the  same  way  as  I  have  published  many 
other  little  books  against  errors  in  other  bodies  of  men."*  It 
is  a  well-known  habit  of  gentlemen  of  this  school  to  "  publish 
little  books"  against  the  religious  opinions  of  the  rest  of  man- 
kind. A  good  portion  of  their  lives  is  generally  consumed  in 
that  occupation;  and  the  Church  of  England  was  perhaps  im- 
prudent in  employing  men  who  were  not  likely  to  make  any 
exception  in  her  favor.  Heber  discovered  the  error,  as  we 
shall  see  when  we  come  to  examine  his  testimony,  but  failed 
to  remedy  it.  And  in  1834:,  we  find  the  Protestant  Bishop  of 
Calcutta  complaining  in  a  circular  to  his  clergy,  "  I  discovered 
a  system  at  work  in  direct  opposition  to  our  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church,  by  the  members  of  which  they  were  sent  out."f 
He  does  not  seem  to  have  suspected  that  the  fault  was  in  those 
who  sent  them.  If  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  chose  to 
employ  men  who  repudiated  her  doctrine  and  scoffed  at  her 
"orders,"  she  had  evidently  forfeited  all  right  to  censure  them. 
Yet  this  incredible  system,  strikingly  characteristic  of  the  real 
nature  of  the  Anglican  Church,  is  still  maintained  all  over  the 
world,  at  the  present  hour,  to  the  great  amazement  of  other 
Protestant  sects,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  whose  members  taunt 
her  with  a  fact  peculiar  to  herself  among  all  Christian  commu- 
nities. In  1844,  Mr.  Weitbrecht,  a  Church  of  England  mission- 
ary in  India,  is  still  boastfully  exclaiming, — "  While  England 
has  supplied  the  means,  our  German  Lutheran  churches  have 
supplied  the  menf\  and  in  1851,  an  Anglican  in  India  repeats 
the  ludicrous  complaint,  that  the  Lutherans  uare  using  all  their 
exertions  to  draw  away  as  many  of  our  people  as  they  can."§ 

We  have  only  to  add  of  Mr.  Khenius,  that  "  the  Tinnevelly 
mission  broke  off  all  connection  with  the  Society  for  Promoting 
Christian  Knowledge,  and  started  on  its  own  account,"  under 
the  auspices  of  Rhenius  and  his  " episcopally  ordained"  friends; 

*  Vol.  xx.,  p.  153.  One  Anglican  clergyman,  and  there  are  probably  thou- 
sands of  the  same  mind,  actually  published  a  book  with  the  following  singular 
title,  The  Right  of  a  Clergyman  to  Oppose  the  Errors  of  his  own  Church,  by 
Henry  Erskine  Head,  M.A.,  Rector  of  Feniton,  and  Chaplain  to  the  King  of 
Hanover  (1841). 

f  Vol.  xvii.,  p.  233  ;  New  Series. 

i  Missions  in  Bengal,  ch.  vii.,  p  328. 

§  Colonial  Church  Chronicle,  vol.  v.,  p.  379. 


282  CHAPTER   III. 

an  event  which  may  have  been  instructive  to  the  heathen,  but 
would  hardly  persuade  them  to  exclaim,  as  their  forefathers  did, 
"  See  how  these  Christians  love  one  another." 

Mr.  Schwartz  is  the  last  of  the  German  or  Danish  missionaries 
whom  we  shall  notice.  As  far  as  can  be  judged  from  such 
materials  as  we  possess  for  estimating  his  character,  he  was  a 
man  of  pure  intentions,  honest  zeal,  and  active  industry.  His 
notions  of  Christianity  were  such  as  were  proper  to  his  class, — 
vague,  distorted,  and  incomplete;  but  such  as  they  .were,  he 
was  sincere  in  proclaiming  them.  He  often  mistook  emotion 
for  faith,  and  except  the  historical  doctrine  of  the  life  and  death 
of  the  Redeemer,  of  whom  he  knew  only  what  can  be  known  to 
men  in  his  condition,  his  creed  contained  no  article.  The  Holy 
Catholic  Church  and  the  Communion  of  Saints,  the  Sacraments 
which  are  the  inventions  of  Divine  love,  the  Great  Sacrifice  of 
the  New  Law,  the  Priesthood  after  the  order  of  Melchizedek, 
these  were  to  his  apprehension  less  than  fables, — they  were 
gross  errors.  In  his  age  Protestants  knew  no  more  of  that 
Church  in  which  the  life  of  Christ  is  renewed  and  perpetuated, 
than  the  savage  who  wanders,  unconscious  of  God  and  of  his 
own  soul,  by  the  shores  of  the  Pacific ;  or  rather,  they  regarded 
her  with  exactly  the  same  feelings  of  ignorant  suspicion,  and 
superstitious  fear,  which  the  heathens  of  the  first  three  centuries 
felt  towards  her.  "When  Schwartz  says  of  Catholics,  "They  are 
of  their  father  the  devil,  and  the  Pope,"*  he  was  probably  rather 
repeating  what  he  had  heard  from  others,  than  uttering  a  con- 
viction to  which  he  had  been  led  by  study  and  reflection.  It 
was  the  wretched  jargon  of  his  age,  and  we  may  believe  in 
charity  that  he  spoke  it  mechanically.  Schwartz  had  strong 
religious  instincts,  and  apparently  a  moral  purity  far  above 
most  of  his  order.  What  he  knew,  or  thought  he  knew,  he 
honestly  desired  to  impart  to  others  ;  and  if  he  failed  as  a 
missionary,  it  was  not  for  want  of  sincerity  or  uprightness. 
What  he  lacked  was  precisely  that  treasure  of  which  he  never 
knew  his  need, — the  gift  of  Divine  faith  and  the  mission  which 
God  has  resolved  to  bestow  only  in  His  Church.  For  want  of 
these,  his  work  came  to  naught,  and  his  excellent  qualities, 
which  attracted  the  respect  of  all  who  knew  him,  were  only 
like  the  perfume  of  wild  flowers  which  is  wasted  in  the  thank- 
less air.  How  immeasurably  superior  he  was  to  almost  all  his 
followers  is  proved  by  the  fact,  that  "he  was  decidedly  unfriend- 
ly to  the  marriage  of  missionaries,  upon  the  elevated  principle 
suggested  by  the  great  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  1  Cor.  vii.  32."f 

*  Pearson's  Memoirs,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  277. 
f  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  346. 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  283 

This  is  perhaps  the  most  notable  circumstance  in  his  history, 
for  that  he  failed,  from  first  to  last,  to  renew  the  triumphs  of  the 
Catholic  apostles,  or  to  effect  any  real  or  lasting  conversions, 
is  admitted  both  by  himself  and  his  warmest  admirers.  Lord 
Yalentia,  who  speaks  with  deserved  kindness  of  "  the  respectable 
Danish  missionary,  Mr.  Schwartz,"  and  praises  the  zeal  of  his 
companions,  says,  "  So  little,  however,  has  been  their  success 
in  conversion,  though  laboring  with  every  advantage,  that  the 
hope  of  "succeeding  among  other  missionaries  must  be  small 
indeed."  He  then  recounts  what  the  Rajah  of  Tanjore  had 
done  to  aid  them,  and  adds:  "Is  it  possible  that  more  than  this 
can  be  done  to  give  Christianity  a  fair  chance  in  India  ?  Yet 
how  few  have  been  the  number  of  the  converted  V™ 

It  must  be  allowed  that  Schwartz  had  more  than  a  "fair 
chance,"  so  far  as  human  means  could  give  it  to  him.  "  He  so 
conciliated  the  esteem  of  one  monarch  of  Tanjore,"  we  are  told, 
"  as  to  obtain  from  him  an  appropriation  of  live  hundred  pago- 
das annually  for  the  support  of  the  missionaries.'^  It  is  true 
that  his  patron  had  strong  motives  for  this  unusual  benevolence, 
as  Schwartz  seems,  by  his  influence  with  the  government,  to  have 
procured  for  him  the  dignity  which  he  held,  in  the  place  of  his 
rival,  Ameer  Sing.  The  Rajah  had  good  reason  to  be  grateful. 

Schwartz  was  also  the  first  who  received  direct  pecuniary 
support  from  the  English  government.  It  is  a  mistake,  however, 
to  suppose  that  he  initiated  the  mission  of  Tanjore  with  which 
his  name  is  connected.  "  You  have  heard,"  says  Dr.  Claudius 
Buchanan,  "  that  Mr.  Schwartz  was  useful  in  the  southern  part 
of  Hindostan.  It  is  true.  But  Mr.  Schwartz  entered  upon  the 
labors  of  others.  The  gospel  had  been  preached  in  that  quarter 
near  one  hundred  years  past.":); 

Schwartz  often  complained,  like  Ziegenbalg,  of  the  difficulties 
created  by  the  immorality  of  Christians.  The  son  of  a  Nabob 
of  the  Carnatic,  struck  with  his  profession  of  piety,  said  to  him : 
"  We  always  regarded  you  Europeans  as  a  most  irreligious  race 
of  men,  unacquainted  even  with  the  nature  of  prayer."  The 
Brahmins  also  used  to  say  to  him,  "  Should  you  not  first 
endeavor  to  convert  the  Christians,  before  you  attempt  to 
proselyte  the  pagans  ?"§  And  when  one  day  he  told  a  Hindoo 
dancing-master  and  his  female ^pupil,  that  "no  unholy  person 
shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 'heaven,"  "Alas!  sir,"  said  the 

ndl,  "  in  that  case,  hardly  any  European  will  ever  enter  it," 
passed  on. 

*  Lord  Valentia's  Travels,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  316. 

f  Christianity  in  India,  by  J.  W.  Cuningham,  M.A.,  p.  136. 

i  Pearson's  Memoirs  of  Buchanan,  vol.  i.,  p.  171. 

§  Memoirs  of  Schwartz,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  311. 


284:  CHAPTER  III. 

And  now  a  word  about  the  "  converts"  of  this  well-inten- 
tioned man.  A  writer  who  lived  long  in  the  same  part  of  India 
says,  "The  numbers  he  did  convert  were  so  inconsiderable,  that 
the  advocates  for  missionary  exertions,  while  they  pronounce 
those  eulogiums  on  his  character  which  it  so  justly  merits,  care- 
fully avoid  all  mention  of  the  success  of  his  public  mission/** 
Mr.  Montgomery,  who  was  private  secretary  to  the  Governor- 
general,  said  of  his  nominal  converts,  uMr.  Schwartz  could 
not  have  any  reason  to  boast  of  the  purity  of  his  followers ; 
they  were  proverbial  for  their  profligacy '."f 

To  this  fatal  criticism  Schwartz  only  answered  by  a  tu  quoque, 
and  the  prompt  retort,  that  they  were  no  worse  than  those  of 
other  people.  Captain  Seely  relates  the  following  anecdote  in 
illustration  of  their  real  character.  He  met  "  a  party  of  eight 
highly  respectable  Hindoos  and  Mussulmans  in  the  garden- 
house  of  the  venerable  Shah  Saiit."  To  this  company  the  cap- 
tain recommended  the  claims  of  the  Christian  religion  upon  the 
respect  of  all  mankind.  "  Upon  my  mentioning  the  well-known 
name  of  Schwartz,"  he  says,  "the  company  said  that  no  real 
converts  had  ever  been  made ;  that  those  who  had  professed 
Christianity  were  men  who  had  lost  their  caste  for  crime,  or 
some  abomination,  or  those  who,  having  nothing  to  lose  by  the 
change,  born  polluted,  and  always  avoided  by  all  other  ranks, 
would  wish  to  assume  another  character,  and  that  was  always 
attainable  by  their  becoming  Christians.  But  even  with  this 
wretched  people,  our  success,  dishonorable  as  the  converts 
were,  was  very  trifling ;  and  many,  finding  that  nothing  was 
to  be  gained  by  the  change,  and  that  the  promises  held  out  to 
them  had  not  been  fulfilled,  relapsed  into  their  former  state. "J 

Schwartz  himself  seems  to  have  frankly  confessed  his  failure, 
when  he  said,  writing  from  Tanjore  to  Chambers,  "I  wish  I 
could  send  you  a  list  of  real  converts.  .  .  .  But  alas !  how  rare 
are  these  !"§  And  even  such  as  they  were,  they  were  evident- 
ly paid  for  their  profession,  for  his  biographer  confesses  that 
"  Schwartz  obtained  from  the  government  a  monthly  allowance 
of  forty  pagodas  for  the  Protestant  poor -," — i.  e.,  the  converts, — 
"  at  Nagapatam."  Finally,  if  we  inquire  what  was  the  defini- 
tive result  of  his  labors,  his  successors  are  willing  to  inform  us 
without  the  least  reserve.  "  TJyerman  and  Bennett,"  two  Prot- 
estant ministers,  "  affirm,  in  1839,  that  '  no  vital  religion  is 
found  in  any  of  the  preachers  or  native  Christians  of  Tanjore;'  "| 

*  Observations  on  the  Present  State  of  the  E.  I.  Company,  by  Major  Scott 
Waring,  p.  47,  4th  edition. 

\  Apology  for  the  Christian  Missions  to  India,  by  Andrew  Fuller ;  app.,  p.  3. 
j:  The  Wonders  of  Mora,  ch.  xix.,  p.  468. 
|  Pearson,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  380. 
\  Travels  in  S.  Eastern  Asia,  by  the  Rev.  Howard  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  74. 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  285 

and  Mr.  Clarkson,  a  missionary  in  India,  adds,  in  1850,  this 
final  comment  upon  the  boasted  mission  of  Schwartz  :  "  The 
history  of  Indian  missions  shows  that  several  places,  which  once 
4  seemed  the  garden  of  the  Lord,'  have  become  again  a  wilder- 
ness. In  Southern  India  '  a  Tanjore  Christian1  became  a  ly- 
word"*  Such  have  been  the  admitted  results  of  all  his  toil. 
"  No  missionary,"  says  Mr.  Charles  Ross,  "  ever  acquired  the 
influence  which  he  did He  was  indefatigable  in  his  en- 
deavors to  promote  Christianity,  but  his  exertions  did  not  pro- 
duce much  fruit,  "f 

That  Schwartz,  in  spite  of  his  integrity  and  zeal,  the  succor 
of  English  authorities,  and  the  patronage  and  protection  of 
natives  of  rank,  should  have  failed  so  signally,  is  only  a  new 
proof  that  the  effectual  conversion  of  souls,  which  is  as  great  a 
miracle  as  the  creation  of  a  world,  is  not  to  be  accomplished  by 
such  instruments.  The  Catholic  missionaries,  as  we  have  seen, 
succeeded  in  spite  of  the  combined  opposition  of  all  the  influ- 
ences which  were  constantly,  but  vainly,  exerted  in  favor  of 
Schwartz.  The  failure  of  one  missionary  of  his  stamp  is  a 
more  impressive  fact,  and  more  suggestive  of  pregnant  conclu- 
sions, than  the  misadventures  of  a  thousand  luxurious  men  like 
Kiernander,  or  conceited  ones  like  Rhenius. 


ENGLISH   MISSIONARIES. 

It  is  now  time  that  we  should  speak  of  England's  own  share 
in  the  work  of  Indian  missions,  and  of  the  efforts  which  she 
originated  or  subsidized,  when  she  at  length  rose  up  from  her 
long  slumber  of  two  hundred  years.  If  she  had  taken  any  part 
in  missionary  operations  at  an  earlier  period,  it  would  have  been 
due  to  her  to  give  it  the  first  place  in  our  review  ;  but  as  her 
own  agents  hardly  came  on  the  scene  before  the  present  century, 
there  was  no  need  to  anticipate  their  reluctant  apparition. 

It  was  certainly  not  too  soon  for  England  to  offer  some  atone- 
ment for  the  past.  We  haye  seen  that  it  was  long  before  she 
even  suffered  a  missionary  to  enter  her  territories,  and  when  at 
last  she  consented  to  admit  them,  they  were  not  unfrequently 
men  of  tainted  character  and  questionable  antecedents.  "  Mis- 
sionaries have  gone  out,"  says  Mr.  Cunningham,  "and  from  this 
country,  who  have  dishonored  their  great  cause,  and  rather 
confirmed  than  shaken  the  superstitions  of  the  people  they 

*  India  and  tJie  Gospel,  by  the  Rev.  William  Clarkson,  Lecture  vl,  p.  323. 
f  The  Cornwallis  Correspondence,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  240. 


286  CHAPTER   III. 

visited."*  Yet  there  have  never  beeji  wanting  men  in  England 
to  protest,  with  perfect  sincerity,  against  such  hirelings,  and  to 
cry  aloud,  though  almost  always  in  vain,  for  a  nobler  race  of 
missionaries,  to  represent  with  greater  dignity  to  the  heathen 
world  their  religious  opinions.  Rarely  indeed  has  the  call  been 
heard,  and  then  rather  by  accident  than  design,  and  never  with 
any  result  but  to  show,  that  even  the  highest  gifts,  both  moral 
and  intellectual,  when  divorced  from  the  service  of  the  Church 
and  dedicated  to  the  interests  of  a  Sect,  may  indeed  give  lustre 
to  individual  character,  but  are  too  weak  to  win  souls  to  Christ. 
We  are  about  to  consider  one  of  the  most  affecting  examples  of 
this  truth.  The  most  conspicuous  name,  perhaps,  in  the  Indian 
annals  of  Protestantism  is  that  of  Henry  Martyn,  and  it  is  one 
which  deserves,  on  several  accounts,  our  careful  consideration. 


HENRY    MARTYN. 

If  there  is  any  name  which  Protestants  would  unanimously 
agree  to  inscribe  in  the  foremost  rank  of  honor,  and  accept  as 
a  type  and  symbol  of  what  they  deem  the  highest  development 
of  the  Christian  character,  it  is  probably  that  of  Henry  Martyn. 
No  other,  perhaps,  has  attracted  such  general  sympathy,  or  been 
invoked  with  such  universal  applause.  What,  then,  was  the 
rare  distinction,  the  peculiar  eminence  of  moral  dignity,  or 
spiritual  grace,  of  which  this  popular  sentiment  is  the  witness 
and  expression  ?  It  was  impossible  for  the  annalist  of  Indian 
missions  to  avoid  this  question,  and  it  can  only  be  answered  by 
a  candid  examination  of  the  facts  of  a  life  which  has  often 
been  regarded  by  Englishmen  with  an  almost  romantic  interest. 

Perhaps  the  writer  may  be  permitted  to  say,  that  he  did  not 
approach  this  investigation  without  sharing,  in  some  degree,  the 
partial  impressions,  almost  the  prejudices,  of  his  .countrymen. 
Catholics  are  so  far  from  refusing  to  acknowledge  the  graces 
which  are  sometimes  found  outside  the  Church,  or  confessing 
them  grudgingly,  that  they  search  for  them  with  an  almost 
credulous  desire,  and  exult  in  the  discovery  of  them  as  in  their 
proper  happiness,  because  it  is  only  where  grace  and  virtue  are 
that  they  can  hope  for  conversion  to  the  truth.f  And  for  this 
reason  they  are  slow  to  admit  that  they  have  been  deceived. 
They  are  willingly  beguiled  by  that  charity  which  "  hopeth  all 
things ;"  and  when  some  cruel  delusion  is  exposed,  some  popular 

*  Christianity  in  India,  p.  147. 

f  The  following  are  condemned  propositions :  "  Nullse  dantur  gratia?,  nisi  per 
fidein."  "  Extra  ecclesiain  nulla  conceditur  gratia." 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  287 

idol  stripped  of  its  seeming  beauty,  some  reputed  saint  dragged 
from  his  uu merited  niche,  Ihey  only  are  the  real  mourners,  for 
they  feel,  with  reason,  that  the  loss  is  theirs. 

If  we  would  know  what  was  the  true  character  of  the  most 
celebrated  of  Protestant  emissaries,  of  one  who  has  not  only 
been  compared  to  the  noblest  apostles  of  the  Church,  but  often 
preferred  before  them,  we  must  accept  the  testimony  of  Prot- 
estants. We  have  no  other  witnesses,  nor  could  we  use  them 
if  we  had.  It  is  from  his  own  friends  and  companions  that  we 
must  derive  all  our  knowledge  of  him,  and  to  them  we  are  now 
going  to  listen. 

The  common  opinion  of  Marty n  is,  that  he  was  truly  an 
apostolic  missionary,  that  he  went  to  India  in  the  loftiest  spirit 
of  self-sacrifice,  and  that,  being  there,  he  did  all  which  could 
be  done  by  an  uninspired  man.  The  truth  is,  as  revealed  by 
himself,  and  by  his  most  enthusiastic  panegyrists,  that  he  was 
never  a  missionary  at  all,  in  any  sense  whatever;  that  he 
quitted  his  country  from  motives  which,  however  respectable, 
might  have  influenced  the  meanest  of  mankind  ;  and  that,  to 
the  day  of  his  death,  he  was  so  far  from  converting  a  single  soul, 
that  long  and  familiar  intercourse  with  him  actually  drove  back 
into  apostasy  the  man  who  was  his  most  intimate  associate,  the 
partner  of  his  daily  life,  and  the  sharer  of  his  toils.  And  first, 
he  had  no  pretension  whatever  even  to  the  title  of  a  missionary. 

Mr.  Kaye,  whose  qualifications  as  a  witness  are  unexception- 
able,— since,  on  the  one  hand,  he  calls  Martyn  "  a  hero  and  a 
martyr,-'  and  a  good  deal  more  to  the  same  purpose,  arid  on  the 
other,  speaks  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  language  which  is 
almost  maniacal — writes  as  follows:  "Henry  Martyn,  like 
Brown  and  Buchanan,  like  Thomason  and  Corrie,  was  a 
chaplain  on  the  establishment,  and  in  no  accepted  sense  of  the 
word  a  missionary.  It  was  not  his  mission  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  the  heathen,  but  to  perform  church  service  in  the 
presence  of  the  Company's  servants,  to  marry  them,  to  bury 
them,  and  to  baptize  their  children."*  And  not  only  was  he 
never  a  missionary,  nor  ever  gave  his  friends  the  slightest 
pretext  for  calling  him  one,  but  his  motive  for  going  to  India, 
as  revealed  to  us  by  his  biographers,  was  such  as  we  can  only 
relate  on  their  responsibility.  It  is  said,  indeed,  that  he 
abandoned  the  fair  prospects  which  his  great  abilities  and  suc- 
cessful academical  career  opened  to  him  in  England ;  and  this 
is  perfectly  true.  Others  have  done  the  same,  but  were  never 
on  that  account  deemed  apostles.  And  when  we  turn  to  the 
record  of  his  life,  we  do  not  advance  beyond  the  "  table  of 

*  Ch.  vi.,  p.  184. 


288  CHAPTER   III. 

contents,"  before  we  learn  what  sent  him  to  India.  In  Mr. 
Sargent's  enthusiastic  memoir,  which  eulogizes  all  that  he  ever 
said  or  did,  we  read,  almost  in  the  title-page,  this  fatal  disclo- 
sure: "Yisits  London  respecting  a  Chaplainship  to  the  East 
India  Company,  in  consequence  of  pecuniary  losses"  And  even 
this  fact,  which  furnishes  indeed  an  adequate  motive  of  prudence 
for  going  to  India,  but  a  very  slender  claim  to  the  character  of 
an  apostolic  missionary,  does  not  reveal  the  whole  truth.  Mr. 
Kaye  supplies  farther  evidence,  chiefly,  as  it  seems,  on  the 
authority  of  Mr.  Simeon,  who  was  Marty n's  friend  and  adviser. 
The  story  is  painful  and  humiliating,  but  too  characteristic  of 
Protestantism  and  its  favorite  heroes  to  be  omitted. 

Martyn  had  formed  an  attachment,  we  are  told,  to  a  young 
lady,  who,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Kaye,  "  did  not  love  Henry 
Martyn,"  but  was  attracted  towards  some  other  man  whom  her 
mother  deemed  ineligible.  The  young  lady's  conduct  we  need 
not  discuss.  Whether,  as  some  say,  she  only  objected  to  accom- 
pany Martyn  to  India,  or  Mr.  Kaye's  account  be  the  true  one, 
is  not  of  the  slightest  importance.  But  we  could  hardly  restrain 
a  smile,  if  the  rising  mirth  were  not  checked  by  graver  thoughts, 
when  we  read  the  story  of  her  lover's  proceedings,  as  recounted 
by  men  who  would  have  us  believe  that  he  was  of  the  school  of 
the  apostles.  Never  did  an  excited  and  impassioned  boy,  just 
emerged  from  pupilage,  display  less  dignity  of  character,  less 
of  that  self-control  against  which  even  the  most  ordinary  men 
blush  to  offend,  than  this  celebrated  person.  We  seem,  as  we 
pursue  the  narrative  of  his  biographers,  to  be  reading  rather 
some  fashionable  romance  than  the  life  of  a  Christian  missionary. 
And  so  far  was  he,  as  some  imagine,  from  sacrificing  this  ill- 
fated  passion  to  the  desire  of  preaching  to  the  heathen,  that 
even  after  he  had  resolved  to  visit  India,  "  in  consequence  of 
pecuniary  losses,"  his  only  thought  was  how  he  could  gratify  it, 
and  still  win  the  reluctant  maiden  who  cast  so  dark  a  shadow 
over  his  after  career.  The  ship  in  which  he  embarked  was 
detained  at  Falmouth  by  adverse  winds ;  and  this  involuntary 
exile,  whose  soul  we  are  told  was  filled  only  with  high  thoughts 
of  missionary  enterprise,  hastily  left  the  vessel,  and  to  relieve 
"  his  lacerated  heart"  hurried  back  to  seek  one  more  interview, 
and  try  one  last  effort,  with  his  obdurate  mistress.  Foiled  in 
this  final  suit,  "he  wept  and  groaned,"  says  Mr.  Kaye,  "till 
he  was  weary  of  his  crying ;  till  his  throat  was  dry,  and  his 
eyes  failed  him."*  And  this,  we  are  to  believe,  was  an  apos- 
tolic missionary ! 

It  is  difficult  to  bring  home  to  the  mind  of  a  Protestant, — 

*  Ubi  supra. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  289 

who  rejects  as  fanciful  and  unreal  the  "  counsels  of  perfection," 
knows  nothing  of  the  triumphs  of  Divine  grace,  and  suspects  that 
all  men  share  his  own  infirmities, — the  contrast  between  Catho- 
lic and  Protestant  missionaries.  Yet  even  the  least  spiritual  of 
men,  even  the  jester  and  the  libertine,  will  confess,  that  he 
cannot  imagine  St.  Paul,  when  about  to  sail  for  Cyprus  in  order 
to  evangelize  the  heathen,  taking  advantage  of  a  foul  wind  to 
quit  the  seacoast  and  hurry  back  to  Antioch,  in  order  to  make 
a  lover's  last  appeal  to  a  disdainful  or  a  capricious  girl.  You 
feel  that  such  a  thought  is  ludicrous  and  profane.  It  outrages 
all  your  perceptions  of  what  is  congruous  and  true ;  it  cuts  to 
the  quick  the  most  refined  and  sensitive  emotions  of  your  soul. 
And  you  confess  that  a  similar  story  related  even  of  the  most 
obscure  Catholic  missionary,  of  this  or  any  other  age,  would 
excite  almost  the  same  feelings,  and  be  received  only  with  a 
smile, — so  monstrous  is  its  improbability.  Such  is  the  instinc- 
tive testimony  of  the  Protestant  world,  though  it  regards  similar 
conduct  even  in  the  greatest  of  its  own  heroes  as  perfectly  natural 
arid  becoming.  Whence  this  prodigious  contrast  ?  How  is  it 
that  the  Catholic  missionary  is  always,  in  the  manner  of  his 
life,  such  as  St.  Paul  or  St.  Barnabas,  and  the  Protestant  never  f 
What  explanation  can  you  propose  of  this  incontestable  fact 
short  of  the  confession,  that  the  gifts  and  graces  proper  to  an 
apostle  are  still  present  with  the  first,  and  ever  wanting  to  the 
last ;  that  is,  that  God  is  with  the  one,  and  not  with  the  other? 
Mr.  Martyn  in  due  time  accomplished  his  voyage.  Arrived  in 
India,  he  seems  only  to  have  excited  among  his  fellow-clergy 
"  unseemly  pulpit  contentions."  Such  was  the  first  eifect  of  his 
presence.  Even  on  the  journey  out  he  had  failed,  by  his  violence 
and  want  of  judgment,  to  attract  his  fellow-passengers.  "  It  was 
a  failure,"  says  Mr.  Kaye,  "  to  be  utterly  deplored."  While 
still  at  home  he  had  been  rebuked  for  the  indiscreet  vehemence 
with  which  he  recommended  his  own  views  of  religion,  and  he 
had  not  yet  learned  the  calm  wisdom  which,  while  it  disdains 
compromise,  knows  how  to  deal  mercifully  with  the  infirmities 
of  others.  He  was  intemperate  and  unconciliating,  as  tempest- 
uous in  his  religious  emotions  as  he  had  been  in  his  passions 
and  affections.  And  this  was  the  impression  which  he  seems  to 
have  produced,  while  in  India,  even  upon  persons  disposed  to 
judge  him  favorably.  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  no  unskilful  or 
captious  judge,  records  this  opinion  of  him  :  "  His  meekness  is 
excessive,  and  gives  a  disagreeable  impression  of  effort  to  con- 
ceal the  passions  of  human  nature."*  And  Captain  Seely,  whose 
sympathies  were  always  with  such  men,  while  lamenting  that 

*  Kaye's  Life  of  Sir  John  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  ii.,  p.  64. 

20 


290  CHAPTER   III. 

the  clergy  were  too  often  "  uncourteous  among  those  who  could 
and  would  have  aided  their  labors,"  adds,  "  of  which  the  late 
Mr.  Marty n  was  a  proof."*  Even  his  admirers  notice  with 
regret  his  changeful  and  restless  temper.  "Sometimes  san- 
guine and  hilarious,"  says  Mr.  Kaye,  "  at  others  despairing  and 
dejected.  His  soul  never  rested."  And  he  completes  the  picture 
by  these  touches :  "  Ever  alive  with  emotion,  trembling  with 
deep  joy  or  deeper  sorrow,  with  wild  hope  or  profound  despair." 
This  hardly  agrees,  it  must  be  confessed,  with  that  type  of  evan- 
gelical piety  and  holy  equanimity  which  St.  Paul  has  described, 
and  which  even  persons  of  ordinary  virtue  are  accustomed  to 
exhibit.  The  true  missionaries  of  the  Gospel  are  not  one  thing 
to-day  and  another  to-morrow,  nor  does  the  closeness  of  their 
union  with  God  depend  upon  the  state  of  their  health,  the  fitful 
coming  and  going  of  emotion,  or  the  condition  of  their  domestic 
affairs.  Their  feet  are  planted  on  a  rock  against  which  the 
waves  vainly  beat ;  and  if  the  tenor  of  their  life  does  not  prove 
this  to  you,  ask  for  further  evidence  in  their  death. 

We  need  hardly  stay  to  inquire  what  was  actually  accom- 
plished by  Mr.  Martyn  in  India.  On  this  point  there  is  not 
even  any  dispute.  Though  he  possessed  the  highest  human 
qualifications, — great  ability  and  extensive  attainments,  so  that, 
when  in  Persia,  "  the  acuteness  of  his  reasoning,  combined  with 
the  perfect  knowledge  he  possessed  of  Persian  and  Arabic,  often 
confounded  the  most  learned  advocates  of  the  Koran,"f — yet 
so  utterly  without  even  the  appearance  of  results  were  all  his 
efforts,  that  his  biographer  gives  up  this  part  of  the  case  as 
hopeless.  He  even  attempts  to  forestall  every  inquiry  on  this 
capital  point  as  unreasonable  and  profane.  "If  success  be 
demanded,"  he  says,  with  an  evident  apprehension  lest  any 
should  apply  that  unwelcome  test,  "  it  is  replied, — that  this  is 
not  the  inquiry  with  Him  '  of  whom  are  all  things,'  either  in 
this  world,  or  in  that  which  is  to  come.  With  Him  the  ques- 
tion is  this :  What  has  been  aimed  at  ?  What  has  been  in- 
tended in  singleness  of  heart ?":{:  We  have  seen,  however,  that 
there  is  another  class  of  laborers,  who,  not  content  with  good 
aims  and  intentions,  know  how  to  accomplish  results  also,  and 
having  planted  and  watered,  reap  in  due  season  fruitful  har- 
vests, so  that,  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  all  those  temporal 
advantages  which  Martyn  and  his  companions  enjoyed,  "no 
missionary  converted  less  than  a  thousand  pagans  annually." 

The  sum  of  Martyn's  success,  as  avowed  by  himself,  is 
limited  to  "  one  old  woman,"  who,  he  "  thought,"  was  seriously 

*  Wonders  of  Elora,  ch.  xix.,  p.  521. 

f  Travels  in  the  Persian  Provinces,  by  James  B.  Fraser,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  307. 

\.  Memoir  of  Rev.  H.  Martyn,  p.  482. 


MISSIONS   IN  INDIA.  291 

impressed ;  while  all  that  his  biographer  ventures  to  say  is, 
that  "  at  Shiraz  &  sensation  has  been  excited."  "  Whatever  he 
did,"  says  a  well-known  Protestant  writer,  "  he  did  it  with  all 
his  might,  and  yet  he  failed  ;  he  made  very  few  converts,  and 
was  obliged  to  acknowledge  in  his  journal  and  correspondence, 
that  he  could  discern  but  few  visible  effects  of  his  ministry."* 
Lastly, -he  says  of  himself ;  "I  am  much  neglected  on  all  sides, 
and  without  the  work  of  translation,  I  should  fear  my  presence 
in  India  were  useless."  Yet  even  of  his  translations  a  Protest- 
ant missionary  says,  "Henry  Martyn's  Persian  Testament  is 
wholly  incomprehensible  to  vulgar  readers."t 

And  now  we  come  to  the  story  of  Sabat,  the  most  remark- 
able incident  in  Martyn's  career,  and  perhaps  in  the  annals  of 
Protestant  missions.  Sabat  was  an  Arabian  Mahometan,  who 
had  received  baptism  from  Dr.  Kerr,  and  made  "  a  public 
profession"  of  Christianity.  Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan  says  his 
conversion  was  "  as  evidently  produced  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 
as  any  conversion  in  the  primitive  Church. "J  He  was  em- 
ployed for  a  long  period  by  Martyn  to  assist  him  in  his  trans- 
lations, lived  under  the  same  roof,  and  was  the  daily  and  hourly 
witness  of  his  life  and  labors.  "  Mr.  Martyn,  in  his  latest 
letters,"  says  Buchanan,  in  1809,  "  speaks  of  Sabat  in  terms  of 
affection  and  admiration."  "  The  great  work  which  occupies 
the  attention  of  this  noble  Arabian,"  says  Martyn  himself,  "  is 
the  promulgation  of  the  Gospel  among  his  own  countrymen. "§ 
What,  then,  was  the  effect  upon  this  generous  and  ardent  con- 
vert of  the  intimate  converse  which  so  long  subsisted  between 
himself  and  Martyn,  and  the  knowledge  which  he  acquired, 
from  daily  observation,  of  his  labors  and  their  results  2  Mr. 
Martyn's  journal  supplies  the  answer  to  this  question.  The 
"  perfect  inutility"  of  his  preaching,  which  could  not  be  con- 
cealed from  his  companion,  produced  the  first  unfavorable 
impression  on  his  mind.  Then  Sabat  would  ridicule  his  small 
and  gradually  diminishing  congregation,  and  Martyn,  mortified 
by  his  failure,  would  retort  bitterly.  "  He  may  spare  his  sar- 
castic remarks,"  writes  the  latter,  u  as  I  suppose  that  after 
another  Sunday  none  at  all  will  come"\\  Finally,  Sabat, 
penetrated  to  his  inmost  soul  with  contempt,  recoiled  from 
what  he  seems  to  have  considered  a  transparent  imposture,  and 
relapsed  into  Mahometanism.  Thus  was  Martyn  not  only 
unable  to  win  converts  himself,  but  the  daily  experience  of  his 

*  Quarterly  Review,  No.  25,  p.  443. 

f  Malcolm's  Travels  in  8.  Eastern  Asia,  vol.  ii.,  p.  307. 

\  The  Star  in  the  East,  a  Sermon,  by  Rev.  C.  Buchanan,  p.  29. 

Ibid.,  p.  26. 

Memoir,  p.  288. 


292  CHAPTER  III. 

* 

incapacity,  and  perhaps  the  near  contemplation  of  his  way- 
ward and  imperfect  character,  actually  drove  back  into  apos- 
tasy one  who  had  been  converted  by  others. 

We  have  dwelt  longer  upon  the  history  of  Martyn  than  can 
be  attempted  in  the  case  of  others,  on  account  of  the  remark- 
able lessons  which  it  conveys.  It  would  be  superfluous  to  offer 
any  comments  upon  the  facts  of  his  career.  If  we  cannot  think 
without  sadness  of  his  wasted  talents,  and  the  high  qualities 
which  availed  him  so  little,  at  least  his  failure  excites  in  us  no 
other  feeling  than  sorrow.  We  can  speak  no  harsh  word  of 
him,  though  he  feared  not  to  brand  with  the  horrible  name  of 
"  Antichrist"  that  holy  Church  in  which  he  would  have  at- 
tained the  rest  and  peace  which  he  sought  so  passionately,  but 
knew  not  where  to  find,  and  whose  blessing  would  have  given 
him  strength  to  effect  the  work  which,  for  want  of  it,  he  left 
undone.  And  so,  after  years  of  pain  and  disquietude, — of 
what  his  biographer  calls  "  mixed  emotions"  and  "  acute 
mental  misery," — he  came  to  his  end,  full  of  good  desires  and 
intentions,  which,  we  may  well  hope,  were  less  unprofitable  to 
himself  than  to  others.  Poor  victim  of  an  earthly  religion, 
which  has  no  medicine  for  sick  souls  like  his  ;  and  though  it 
talks  to  its  votaries  of  a  far-off'  Saviour,  can  neither  win  Him 
to  them,  nor  guide  them  to  Him  ;  which  feeds  them  on  empty 
wind,  or  emptier  words ;  and  when  at  last  it  hides  them  out  of 
eight  in  the  silent  grave,  has  done  no  more  for  them  than  when 
it^received  them,  naked  and  forlorn,  as  they  came  from  their 
mother's  womb.  In  such  as  Martyn  we  see  how  it  does  its 
fatal  work,  marring  all  natural  gifts,  however  fair  and  noble, 
because  it  knows  not  how  to  add  to  them  those  which  are 
supernatural.  He  was  of  that  class  of  whom  earthly  religions 
have  produced  so  many,  who  pant  after  excellence  which  they 
can  never  attain  ;  whose  very  prayer  is  wild  and  tempestuous, 
more  full  of  wailing  than  of  trust,  more  like  the  "  exceeding 
bitter  cry"  of  the  disinherited  son  than  the  loving  confidence 
of  the  true  heir ;  and  whose  piety,  even  in  its  best  form,  re- 
sembles rather  the  fluctuating  ebb  and  flow  of  emotion  and 
sentiment,  the  fitful  caprice  of  human  passion,  than  that  deep 
rest  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  none  may  find  but  in  the  Church 
of  God.  To  such  as  these  it  is  not  given  to  win  souls.  They 
are  too  slenderly  equipped  with  apostolic  graces  to  succeed  in 
apostolic  warfare.  How  should  they  vanquish  demons,  or  break 
the  fetters  of  their  captives,  who  have  not  even  learned  to 
overcome  themselves? 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  293 


DR.    CLAUDIUS   BUCHANAN. 

The  name  of  Dr.  Claudius  Buchanan  would  hardly  require 
special  notice  in  these  pages,  since  he  was  still  less  a  missionary 
than  Martyn,but  that  he  has  shared  with  the  latter,  one  knows 
not  why,  the  ardent  eulogies  of  Protestants,  and  furnished  a 
theme  to  enthusiastic  biographers.  A  Protestant  historian 
speaks  of  Buchanan,  with  "  Heber,  Spencer,  and  Carr,"  as 
"  enduring  as  true  a  martyrdom"*  as  any  of  the  Jesuits,  and 
considers  their  success  more  conspicuous.  We  can  hardly  re- 
fuse, therefore,  to  notice  the  object  of  such  unusual  praise.  Mr. 
Kaye,  whose  infelicitous  fate  it  seems  to  be  to  defile,  one  after 
another,  the  heroes  of  the  very  cause  which  he  strives  to  uphold, 
has  sketched  for  us  the  history  of  Buchanan.  It  presents  a 
curious  illustration  of  the  simplicity  with  which  Protestantism 
accepts  its  heroes,  and  the  temerity  with  which  it  canonizes 
them. 

Buchanan,  he  tells  us,  was  in  his  youth  "  a  wandering  min- 
strel." He  had  found  the  restraints  of  domestic  life  too  irksome, 
and  to  relieve  himself  from  their  yoke  he  became  a  strolling 
player,  obstinately  refusing  every  invitation  to  return  to  the 
paternal  roof.  Weary  of  this  somewhat  questionable  calling,  he 
next  became  "  an  attorney's  clerk  ;"  and  Mr.  Kaye  adds,  with 
scant  reverence  for  the  future  "  missionary,"  that  "  though  he 
sometimes  wanted  a  dinner,  he  had  money  to  spend  on  theatres, 
spouting  clubs,  and  other  public  amusements."f 

But  even  this  does  not  blunt  Mr.  Kaye's  appetite  for  histor- 
ical invective,  especially  when  he  is  dealing  with  the  luminaries 
of  his  own  sect.  He  is  careful,  therefore,  to  inform  us, — speak- 
ing of  a  later  period  of  Buchanan's  life,  when  he  had  become  a 
clergyman  and  settled  in  India, — that  "  one  of  the  most  intel- 
ligent officers  in  the  Company's  service,  a  resident  at  a  native 
court,"  was  accustomed  to  say  of  Buchanan,  "I  am  convinced 
that  he  is  a  man  of  wretched  and  most  unchristian  like  vanity.";): 
Nor  can  we  venture  to  deny  with  any  confidence  that  the  opinion 
of  this  intelligent  officer  was  strictly  accurate.  "  I  often  com- 
pare myself,  in  my  present  exile,"  says  Buchanan,  "to  John,  in 
the  island  of  Patmos."§  Whether  the  position  of  an  ex-min- 
•  strel  and  attorney's  clerk,  promoted  to  a  professorship  in  a  Cal- 
cutta college,  and  whose  "  exile"  was  solaced  by  opulent  ease, 
was  quite  identical  with  that  of  St.  John  at  Patmos,  may  per- 

*  The  Early  Jesuit  Missions  in  JV.  America,  by  the  Rev.  W.  Ingraham  Kipp, 
M.A. ;  preface,  p.  8. 

f  Christianity  in  India,  cli.  vi.,  p.  167. 

j  History  of  the  Administration  of  the  E.  I.  Company,  p.  636. 

§  Pearson's  Memoirs  of  Buchanan,  vol.  i.,  p.  150. 


294:  CHAPTER    III. 

haps  be  disputed, — especially  as  even  an  admirer  tells  us  that, 
"  for  the  present  Mr.  Buchanan  was  almost  a  silent  witness  in 
this  Patmos  for  the  word  of  God."*  But  if  his  estimate  of  his 
own  merits  was  sometimes  excessive,  he  compounded  for  this 
infirmity  by  duly  appreciating  the  defects  of  others.  Thus  he 
tells  us  of  his  fellow-clergy  in  India,  that  "  the  chief  fault  of  the 
missionary  societies  at  home  was  in  the  selection  of  the  men. 
It  appears  that  most  of  them  were  weak,  and  most  of  them 
novices."  Again,  describing  his  own  immediate  sphere,  he 
says,  "  We  have  some  of  all  sects  in  our  congregation, — Pres- 
byterians, Independents,  Baptists,  Armenians,  Greeks,  and 
Nestorians ;  and  some  of  them  are  part  of  my  audience  at  the 
English  Church.  But  a  name  or  a  sect  is  never  mentioned  from 
the  pulpit."f  Under  the  circumstances,  this  precaution  was 
probably  judicious. 

Sometimes  he  speaks  of  Catholics,  and,  being  perfectly  inde- 
pendent of  "missionary  societies  at  home,"  with  singular  fair- 
ness. The  Jesuits  he  often  praises,  declaring  that  "their  infor- 
mation is  generally  more  important  than  that  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries,"  and  that "  they  very  politely  gave  me  all  the  books 
I  wanted,  and  letters  of  introduction  to  their  brethren  in  the 
south."  He  might  well  trust  to  their  books  and  their  authority 
in  getting  up  his  facts  about  India,  for,  as  Count  Bjdrnstjerna 
confessed  long  after,  "  it  is  to  them  that  we  are  really  indebted 
for  the  best  accounts  of  India  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries.''^ 

The  only  incident  in  Buchanan's  career,  who  never  converted, 
nor  pretended  to  convert,  even  a  solitary  heathen,  was  his  visit 
to  the  Syrian  Churches  of  Malabar,  of  which  he  has  frankly 
avowed  both  the  motive  and  the  results.  "  When  I  reflected," 
he  says,  "  on  the  immense  power  of  the  Romish  Church  in 
India,  and  on  our  inability  to  withstand  its  influence  alone,  it 
appeared  to  me  an  object  of  great  consequence  to  secure  the 
aid  and  co-operation  of  the  Syrian  Church,  and  the  sanction  of 
its  antiquity  in  the  East."§  Such  candor  almost  disarms  criti- 
cism, especially  when  he  adds,  that  this  scheme,  which  the 
Anglican  Church  has  often  tried  elsewhere,  notably  failed. 
We  must  quote  his  own  words. 

The  Syrians  were  in  great  straits.  The  larger  number  of  them 
had  already  submitted  to  the  Catholic  Church  and  abjured  their 

*  Sketches  of  Christianity  in  India,  by  the  Rev.  M.  Wilkinson,  p.  98. 

f  Vol.  i.,  p.  324. 

\  The  fheogony  of  the  Hindoos,  by  Count  Bjornstjerna,  p.  6  (1844).  Cf. 
History  of  India,  by  the  Hon.  Mountstewart  Elphinstone,  vol.  ii.,  book  12, 
ch.  iii.,  p.  653. 

§  Christian  Researches  in  Asia,  p.  64. 


MISSIONS   IN    INDIA.  295 

heresy ;  the  remainder  were  therefore  not  unlikely  to  welcome  the 
advances  of  an  emissary  who,  in  their  apprehension,  represented 
both  the  Church  and  the  Government  of  the  great  power  whose 
subjects  they  had  now  become.  Yet  they  did  not  hesitate  a 
moment  to  give  the  same  contemptuous  answer  to  his  embassy 
which  the  Church  of  England  had  so  often  received  from  other 
oriental  sects,  whose  "  co-operation"  she  has  vainly  solicited. 
Buchanan  visited  Mar  Dioriysius,  the  "  Metropolitan  of  the 
Syrian  Church,"  and  this  was  his  reception:  u  The  bishop's 
chaplain  confessed  to  me  that  they  had  doubts  as  to  the  purity 
of  English  ordination.  '  The  English,'  said  they,  '  may  be  a 
warlike  and  a  great  people  ;  but  their  Church,  by  your  own 
account,  is  but  of  recent  origin.' '  This  was  a  grave  rebuff 
from  men  under  whose  antiquity  he  wished  to  shelter  his  own 
very  "  recent"  Church ;  nor  could  he,  after  all  his  efforts,  extract 
from  the  bishop  any  other  remark  than  this,  that  "  he  did  not 
perfectly  comprehend  our  ecclesiastical  principles  !"* 

The  efforts  of  the  Anglican  Church  in  India  to  connect  itself 
with  this  sect,  and  their  mortifying  conclusion,  deserve  a  brief 
notice.  So  long  as  it  was  hoped  that  the  Nestorians  might  be 
induced  to  join  them  in  that  opposition  to  the  Catholic  Church 
for  which  the  former  had  only  too  keen  a  relish,  they  were  flat- 
tered and  caressed,  Bibles  and  money  forced  upon  them,  and 
every  mark  of  sympathy  and  respect.  Above  all,  their  "  purity" 
and  a  antiquity"  were  vehemently  celebrated.  La  Croze  had 
praised,  fifty  years  before  Buchanan,  "  the  considerable  marks  of 
purity"f  which  the  Nestorian  Church  exhibited,  and  Protestant 
bishops  and  clergy  have  eagerly  repeated  his  language  up  to  the 
present  time.  " There  is  perhaps,"  says  an  Anglican  clergyman, 
u  no  example  of  a  Church  more  pure,  simple,  and  apostolic.";): 
We  shall  have  additional  proofs  of  this  complicity  when  we  come 
to  speak  hereafter  of  Armenia  and  the  Levant.  Yet  these  Syr- 
ians, as  Dubois  observed,  u  destroy  the  whole  economy  of  the 
mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  and  acknowledge  two  distinct  and 
separate  Persons  in  Christ."§  And  Mr.  Wrede,  who  also  had 
lived  among  them,  says:  "They  reject  the  Divine  nature  of 
Christ,  and  call  the  Virgin  Mary  only  the  mother  of  Christ,  not  of 
God. "||  With  these  unfortunate  sectaries  the  bishops  arid  clergy 
of  the  Anglican  Church  in  India  strove  earnestly  to  form  a  treaty 
of  alliance;  and  it  was  not  until  their  advances  had  been  repelled 

*  P.  66. 

f  Histoire  du  Christianisme  des  Indes,  tome  i.,  liv.  i.,  p.  4. 
i  Christianity  in  India,  by  J.  W.  Cunningham,  M.A.,  p.  117. 
§  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  iii.,  p.  74. 

I  Account  of  the  St.  Thome  Christians  on  the  Coast  of  Malabar,  by  F.  Wrede, 
Asiatic  Researches,  vol.  vii.,  p.  370. 


296  CHAPTER   III. 

again  and  again  that  they  affected  to  discover,  in  the  words  of 
Dr.  Brown,  that  "these  ancient  churches  are,  in  reality,  little  if 
at  all  better  than  the  Romish  Church.  We  question  if  there 
are  even  to  be  found  in  them  those  examples  of  piety  which  are 
occasionally  to  be  found  in  the  Church  of  Rome."*  But  by  this 
time  the  Syrians  had  peremptorily  refused  all  further  intercourse 
with  Protestants,  and  Dr.  Wilson,  the  Anglican  Bishop  of  Cal- 
cutta, had  "resolved  to  disconnect  the  Church  Missionary  So- 
ciety from  the  Syrian  Church  altogether.''! 

Dr.  Buchanan  did  not  of  course  foresee  this  result,  when  he 
went  to  solicit  the  "  co-operation"  of  the  Nestorians  against 
"  the  immense  power  of  the  Romish  Church  in  India."  The 
only  additional  fact  in  his  history  which  we  need  notice  is  his 
visit  to  the  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Goa,  to  whom  he  related, 
with  admirable  tact  and  judgment,  the  popular  traditions  about 
the  atrocities  of  the  Inquisition.  The  only  comment,  he  tell  us, 
which  his  graphic  tales  elicited  from  the  venerable  prelate,  wras 
expressed  by  the  occasional  ejaculation,  which  hardly  inter- 
rupted his  flowing  narrative — u  mendadum  !  mendacium  /";£ 


DR.  JUDSON. 

A  second  name  to  which  it  would  not  have  been  necessary  to 
allude  but  for  a  special  reason,  is  that  of  Dr.  Judson.  It  is  this 
gentleman  who  is  selected  by  a  well-known  Protestant  reviewer, 
out  of  the  thousands  from  whom  he  might  have  chosen  his 
model,  as  worthy  to  be  compared  with  St.  Francis,  De  Britto, 
or  any  Catholic  missionary  whatever.  The  character  of  Dr. 
Judson,  he  says,  is  one  of  the  glories  of  Protestantism,  which 
need  not  fear,  while  it  can  point  to  his  "  devoted  courage,"  the 
most  unsparing  criticism  of  its  missionary  agents.  It  will  be 
interesting  to  examine  the  history  of  one  whom  even  the  Satur- 
day Review  considers  a  model  missionary. 

The  Rev.  Adoniram  Judson  commenced  his  career  nearly 
fifty  years  ago.  Unlike  the  order  of  apostolic  missionaries  with 
whom  he  is  compared,  Dr.  Judson  was  so  little  prepared  to  in- 
vite the  heathen  to  any  definite  belief,  that  he  had  not  decided, 
when  he  left  Boston,  what  he  should  believe  himself.  He 
'changed  his  opinion,  therefore,  on  one  of  the  most  important 
truths  of  Christianity,  not  before  he  set  out  for  the  East,  but 
during  his  voyage  thither.  "  On  the  passage,"  we  learn  from 

*  History  of  the  Propagation  of  Christianity,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  348. 
f  Missions  in  8,  India,  by  J.  Mullens,  p.  130. 
i  Christian  Researches,  p.  85. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  297 

Mr.  Wayland,  "Mr.  Judson  became  convinced  that  the  New 
Testament  furnished  no  authority  for  infant  baptism."*  Dr. 
Worcester,  who  has  also  written  his  life,  sees  in  this  incident 
only  "  a  transfer  of  denominational  relations ;"  a  more  serious 
biographer  laments,  that  it  "  not  only  gave  much  distress  to 
the  members  of  the  mission,  but  produced,  perhaps,  other  feel- 
ings, besides  chagrin  to  the  minds  of  the  members  of  the  board 
that  had  sent  him  out."f 

St.  Paul  speaks  of  people  who  are  "carried  about  by  every 
wind  of  doctrine,"  "  ever  learning,  and  never  attaining  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth,"  and  he  includes  "  the  doctrine  of 
baptism"  among  those  cardinal  verities  which  form  the  "  foun- 
dation" of  Christianity 4  But  it  is  permitted  to  Protestant 
missionaries  to  change  their  views  on  such  subjects,  and  Dr. 
Judson  used  the  privilege.  This  was  his  first  step,  and  the  next 
was  a  suitable  sequel. 

His  immediate  destination  was  Burmah.  His  conduct  in  that 
country  is  thus  described  by  a  Protestant  writer,  in  a  treatise 
which  has  the  honor  to  rank  as  a  Cambridge  Prize  Essay. 

"The  methods  by  which  missionaries  endeavor  to  attract 
attention  have  frequently  operated  to  the  injury  of  their  cause 
among  a  people  who  are,  perhaps,  more  alive  to  their  absurdity 
than  even  Europeans.  Judson,  for  instance,  commenced  his 
missionary  labors  at  Rangoon,  in  Burmah,  by  constructing  on 
the  side  of  the  road  leading  to  the  grand  pagoda  a  little  hut 
of  bamboo  and  thatch,  without  doors,  windows,  or  partitions. 
Here,  as  his  wife  relates,  he  used  to  sit  all  day  long,  and  say 
to  the  passers  by,  '  Ho  !  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to 
the  waters,  and  he  that  hath  no  money,  come  ye,  buy  and  eat ; 
yea,  come,  buy  wine  and  milk  without  price.'  What  could  be 
more  ill  judged,  not  to  say  absurd,  than  this  ?  How  could  the 
passers-by,  by  any  human  possibility,  have  the  least  compre- 
hension of  this  beautiful  metaphor  ?  Taking  it  in  its  literal 
sense,  the  only  one  in  which  they  could  take  it,  can  we  blame 
the  Burmese  for  laughing  in  his  face,  and  considering  him, 
prima  facie,  either  a  fool  or  a  madman  ?''§ 

We  are  not  surprised  to  learn  from  an  enthusiastic  biographer, 
that  Dr.  Judson  consumed  six  years  in  Burmah  without  attract- 
ing a  solitary  disciple.  At  length  one  convert  is  recorded,  of 
whom  we  are  told  nothing  whatever,  not  even  his  position  in 
Dr.  Judson's  establishment ;  and  then  Dr.  Worcester  hastens  to 

*  Memoir  of  the  Rev.  Adoniram  Judson,  D.D.,  by  Francis  Wayland,  vol.  i., 
p.  95. 

\  Religion  in  tJie  United  States  of  America,  by  the  Rev.  Robert  Baird,  book 
viii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  703. 
.  t  Hob.  vi.  1,  2. 

§  Irving,  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste,  ch.  v.,  p.  150. 


298  CHAPTER    III. 

add,  "  We  must  now  abandon  details  altogether," — a  precau- 
tion which  obliges  us  to  conclude  that  Dr.  Judson's  missionary 
career  supplied  only  scanty  materials  for  history. 

Perplexed  by  his  continued  failure,  he  now  resolved  to  try 
the  final  remedy  of  a  visit  to  the  king.  "  When  did  you 
arrive  ?"  was  the  abrupt  inquiry  with  which  the  Burmese 
monarch  greeted  him.  "  Are  you  married  ?  Why  do  you 
dress  so?"  The  king  was  probably  comparing  him  in  his  own 
mind  with  the  Catholic  missionaries  whom  he  had  seen,  and 
was  evidently  not  impressed  by  the  aspect  of  his  female  com- 
panion, or  the  peculiarity  of  his  costume.  But  Judson  did  not 
contide  wholly  in  such  auxiliaries,  nor  present  himself  empty- 
handed.  A  petition,  in  which  he  solicited  the  royal  favor ;  a 
tract,  which  purported  to  be  written  in  the  Burmese  language; 
and  a  Bible,  in  six  volumes  gorgeously  bound — these  were  his 
gifts  to  the  sovereign  of  Bunnah.  The  petition,  Dr.  Worcester 
relates,  his  majesty  "  read  through  deliberately  without  saying 
a  word;"  the  tract  "he  dashed  to  the  ground  ;"  the  Bible  kChe 
did  not  notice."  And  then  the  king  walked  coldly  away, 
leaving  his  minister  to  communicate  to  the  Protestant  embassy 
the  following  decision:  "In  regard  to  the  objects  of  your 
petition,  his  majesty  gives  no  order.  In  regard  to  your  sacred 
books,  his  majesty  has  no  use  for  them.  Take  them  away  !" 
"  The  missionaries,"  Dr.  Worcester  adds,  "  were  satisfied  that 
they  had  made  a  mistake."* 

It  was  perhaps  natural  that  Dr.  Judson  should  now  resolve 
to  quit  Burmah.  His  companions  had  already  departed,  as  we 
learn  from  a  remonstrance  addressed  by  himself  to  the  board 
which  employed  him.  "I  should  be  inclined  to  advise  the 
board,"  he  wrote,  "  to  send  out  no  more  missionaries  to  these 
parts,  unless  they  can  devise  some  way  of  making  them  go 
where  they  are  sent,  and  stay  there."^  He  did  not  follow  his 
own  advice,  but  this  was  perhaps  because  he  had  come  to  the 
same  conclusion  as  his  fugitive  colleagues.  And  so  he  went 
his  way,  his  last  farewell  to  the  people  of  Burmah  being 
expressed  in  the  parting  exhortation,  "Read  the  live  hundred 
tracts  I  have  left  with  thee  !" — a  task  which  they  had  shown 
no  inclination  to  begin,  and  which  they  have  probably  not  yet 
completed. 

Such  was  the  issue  of  Dr.  Judson's  labors  in  Burmah. 
Further  details  in  illustration  of  his  character  are  supplied 
by  his  friend  Mr.  Gouger,  and  as  Judson  is  represented,  even 
by  so  fastidious  a  critic  as  the  Saturday  jffeview,  as  a  model 

*  Biographical  and  Historical  Sketches  of  Distinguished  American  Mission- 
aries, p.  90. 
f  Way  land's  Memoir,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  304. 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  299 

Protestant  missionary,  they  claim  perhaps  a  moment's  atten- 
tion. Mr.  Gonger  was  the  companion  of  Judson  and  Dr.  Price 
in  the  prison  to  which  they  seem  to  have  been  committed,  by 
the  king's  order,  under  the  notion  that  they  were  European 
spies.  Fellows  in  misfortune,  they  laid  aside  official  restraints, 
and  became  frank  and  communicative.  "  In  my  early  days  of 
wildness,"  Dr.  Judson  told  Mr.  Gouger,  in  one  of  these  mo- 
ments of  expansion,  "  I  joined  a  band  of  strolling  players.  We 
lived  a  reckless  vagabond  life,  finding  lodgings  where  we  could, 
and  bilking  the  landlord  where  we  found  opportunity — in  other 
words,  running  up  a  score,  and  then  decamping  without  paying 
the  reckoning."  We  have  seen  that  this  was  also  Dr.  Buchan- 
an's preparation  for  missionary  toils  ;  but  Judson,  having  sur- 
passed that  gentleman  in  his  early  irregularities,  appears  to 
have  surpassed  him  also  in  the  energy  of  his  repentance.  "At 
a  later  period,"  he  told  Mr.  Gouger — "  when  the  enormity  of 
this  vicious  course  rested  with  a  depressing  weight  on  my 
mind" — he  returned  to  the  scenes  of  his  youth,  and  paid  his 
tavern  bills.  The  incident,  Mr.  Gouger  informs  us,  was  handled 
with  remarkable  skill  by  an  American  Missionary  Society. 
"He  contrived  to  attach  himself,"  was  their  ingenious  report  to 
their  subscribers,  "to  a  theatrical  company,  not  with  the  design 
of  entering  upon  the  stage,  but  partly  for  the  purpose  of 
familiarizing  himself  with  its  regulations,  in  case  he  should 
enter  upon  literary  projects!" 

Judson  himself,  who  had  a  good  deal  more  integrity  than  his 
employers,  and  might  have  passed  with  credit  through  life  if 
he  had  chosen  any  profession  but  that  of  a  missionary,  would 
not  have  tolerated  this  pious  fiction.  "  Judson  knew  so  well," 
says  his  friend,  "  this  tendency  in  America,  and  had  seen  his 
own  letters  so  garbled,  that  he  wrote  a  peremptory  prohibition 
to  print  his  letters,  unless  they  were  given  entire."  The  im- 
mediate occasion  of  this  honest  proceeding  seems  to  have  been 
as  follows.  The  King  of  Ava  had  proposed  to  Dr.  Price  to 
teach  English  to  a  few  young  natives,  that  they  might  be 
qualified  as  interpreters — a  project  which  was  never  executed. 
"  What  was  our  astonishment,  shortly  after,  to  read  in  a 
periodical,  the  announcement  that  the  King  of  Ava  was  favor- 
able to  the  Christian  religion ;  that  there  was  every  prospect 
of  his  im mediate  conversion  to  Christianity;  that  he  had  sent 
to  Calcutta  for  a  number  of  Bibles;  and  that  we  might  hope, 
as  the  result,  that  the  whole  of  this  mighty  nation  would  now 
become  shortly  evangelized!"* 

*  Mr.  Gouger  notices  a  recent  book,  by  a  Mistress  Wylie,  the  wife  of  a  Prot- 
estant missionary,  who  gives  much  the  same  account  of  the  Karens,  a  people  on 
the  frontiers  of  this  kingdom,  whom  she  represents  as  model  Protestants,  to  the 


300  CHAPTER    III. 

Judson's  fellow-missionary,  Dr.  Price,  who  shares  with  him 
the  eulogies  of  missionary  societies,  seems  to  have  vexed  him 
not  a  little.  He  was  a  "medical  missionary,"  without  any 
knowledge  of  medicine.  Dr.  Price's  second  wife  was  "  a  blind 
native  woman,  of  Siamese  extraction,"  whom  he  had  deprived 
of  sight  by  operating  on  her  eyes.  This  was  the  usual  fate  of 
his  patients.  As  the  woman  was  hideously  uncomely,  besides 
being  a  pagan,  Judson  "refused  to  perform  the  ceremony." 
This  impediment,  says  Mr.  Gouger,  Dr.  Price  vanquished  by  "  a 
threat  of  a  peculiar  nature."  u  Brother  Judson,"  he  replied,  to 
the  admonitions  of  the  latter,  "the  law  of  America,  and  of 
nature,  provides  for  cases  where  a  minister  is  not  to  be  found." 

While  in  prison,  Dr.  Price  and  Dr.  Judson  were  bedfellows, 
an  arrangement  said  to  be  consecrated  by  American  usage. 
The  former  had  acquired  an  intolerable  habit  of  kicking  Dr. 
Judson,  and  obstinately  defending  the  practice  as  necessary  to 
his  own  comfort ;  a  view  which  the  latter,  wearied  with  the 
long  prison  nights,  naturally  resented.  "  A  feud  arose,"  says 
their  sympathizing  companion,  who  accepted  the  missionary 
pretensions  of  both  with  perfect  seriousness,  "  between  these 
two  excellent  men,  which  had  been  gradually  gaining  ground, 
and  broke  out  on  a  certain  midnight  with  such  violence  and 
recrimination,  that  I  was  fain  to  come  between  the  parties  to 
preserve  the  peace."* 

Dr.  Judson  got  out  of  prison  and  went  to  India.  But 
wherever  he  went,  his  history  was  the  same.  He  converted 
nobody,  in  Burinah,  in  India,  or  anywhere  else ;  and  in  spite  of 
good  but  impotent  desires,  only  confirmed  the  scoffing  pagans  in 
their  contempt  for  the  religion  which  he  taught.  He  was  con- 
spicuous among  those  well-meaning  but  unprofitable  agents,  who 
teach  before  they  have  learned,  whose  life  ebbs  away  in  sterile 
emotion  and  disjointed  talk,  and  of  whom  Mr.  Windsor  Earl 
observed  on  the  spot :  "Their  labors  are  rarely  heard  of,  except 
through  the  medium  of  missionary  publications,  brought  out  from 

number  of  many  thousands.  Mr.  Gouger,  who  shrewdly  observes  that  the 
annexation  of  Pegu  by  England  will  probably  strengthen  the  hands  of  Protest- 
ant missionaries,  only  ventures  to  report,  and  that  from  hearsay,  that  "  their  pro- 
fession is  not  rendered  grotesque  by  the  admixture  of  any  exuberant  element  of 
paganism  !"  We  shall  see  too  many  examples  in  the  course  of  this  work  of  the 
real  meaning  of  such  statements,  to  permit  us  to  accept  the  narrative  of  Mistress 
Wylie  without  some  better  evidence  than  her  own  assertion.  Dr.  Latham  no- 
tices that  the  native  shamans  "  predict  a  deliverance  from  the  grinding  tyranny 
of  the  Avans,"  and  connect  their  hopes  with  the  advent  of  the  English  and  Amer- 
ican missionaries.  The  latter  will  no  doubt  profit  for  a  season  by  this  circum- 
stance, since  the  Karens  will  be  likely  to  regard  them  as  political  auxiliaries. 
Ethnology  of  Ir.dia,  by  R.  G.  Latham,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  96  (1859). 

*  Personal  Narrative  of  Two   Years'  Imprisonment  in  Burmah,  by  Henry 
Gouger,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  178 ;  ch.  xx.,  p.  227  (1800). 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  301 

England"*  It  is  of  such  men  that  another  Protestant  travel- 
ler, Mr.  Kennett  Mackenzie,  frankly  declares,  that  "  the  so- 
called  missionary  labors  in  Burmah  cause  more  harm  in  a 
short  while"  than  all  other  influences  "  will  do  in  the  course 
of  years."f  And  his  failure,  like  that  of  Schwartz,  is  the 
more  significant,  because,  as  all  his  biographers  admit,  he  con- 
ducted his  operations  during  many  years  without  let  or  hin- 
drance, encountering  no  other  opposition  but  the  contemptuous 
indifference  which  he  knew  not  how  to  overcome.  "The 
people  of  Burmah,"  Sir  William  Sleeman  reported  to  Lord 
Dalhousie,  in  1852,  "  are  not  in  any  way  opposed  to  us  from 
either  religious  or  political  feelings  ;"^  while  another  British 
official  candidly  relates  that  missionaries  of  a  different  order, 
having  the  gifts  and  the  vocation  of  apostles,  easily  win  the 
love  and  respect  of  the  very  people  with  whom  Judson  and 
his  companions  were  only  objects  of  derision.  "  It  is  a  pity," 
said  Major  Burney,  who  was  English  Resident  at  the  Burmese 
court  at  the  very  time  of  Judson's  career,  "  that  some  account 
of  Father  d'Amato  cannot  be  communicated  to  the  civilized 
world.  He  lived  among  his  flock,  like  one  of  themselves,  and 
was  venerated  by  them  in  no  common  degree."§ 

Mr.  Gouger  also  notices  Father  Ignatius  Brito,  a  native 
Burmese  Catholic  priest,  who  was  in  prison  with  Price  and 
Judson,  where  he  spent  his  nights  in  singing  "Latin  songs  set 
to  plaintive  music,  in  honor  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  in  good  taste 
and  with  good  voice,"  and  when  released,  "  became  a  useful  and 
respected  pastor  of  a  small  church  in  those  remote  regions."! 

We  fail  thus  far  to  detect  in  Dr.  Judson  the  apostolic  char- 
acter which  the  Protestant  reviewer  claims  for  him,  but  he  was 
distinguished  in  another  way,  which  perhaps  inspired  the  admi- 
ration ofta  critic  who  deprecates  "  Catholic  asceticism"  as  a  mere 
"  exotic,"  which  Protestants  can  do  very  well  without.^"  Mr. 
Mullens,  who  has  been  already  quoted,  notices  with  cordial 
approval,  that  Protestant  missionaries  "  do  not  become  hypo- 
chondriac by  living  alone;"  and  Judson  guarded  himself  so 
effectually  against  the  depressing  influences  of  solitude,  that  he 
contracted  three  matrimonial  alliances  during  his  missionary 
career,  and  enjoyed  the  rare  advantage  of  having  his  memoirs 
composed,  not  like  Morrison,  by  a  second,  but  by  a  third  wife. 
The  various  marriages  of  Dr.  Judson,  and  the  terms  in  which 

*  The  Eastern  Seas,  ch.  xii.,  p.  398. 

Burmah  and  the  Burmese,  pref.  (1853). 

Journey  through  the  Kingdom  of  Oude,  vol.  ii.,  p.  367  (1858). 
&  Asiatic  Journal,  New  Series,  vol.  x.,  p.  274. 

Ch.  xxiii.,  p.  256. 

Saturday  Review,  January,  1859. 


302  CHAPTER  III. 

they  are  narrated  by  his  biographers,  deserve  attention,  because 
they  assist  us  to  appreciate  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  Protest- 
ant missionaries. 

Of  Dr.  Judson's  first  wife,  who  died  more  than  thirty  years 
ago,  we  are  told  by  the  Kev.  Dr.  Worcester,  "  it  is  not  ex- 
travagant to  characterize  her  as  the  woman  of  the  century." 
The  eminence  of  her  gifts  did  not,  however,  exempt  her  from 
bodily  frailties,  and  this  lady  died.  -Dr.  Worcester,  constrained 
to  "  abandon  details  altogether,"  and  having  nothing  to  relate 
about  converts  among  the  heathen  or  martyrs  among  their 
teachers,  falls  back  upon  the  first  Mrs.  Judson,  and  endeavors 
to  do  justice  to  her  merits.  Having  exhausted  this  topic,  he 
returns  to  his  hero,  and  goes  on  thus :  "  Mr.  Judson  ceased  to 
tread  the  path  of  life  alone,  and  a  new  character  appears  in 
our  narrative."  This  was  the  second  Mrs.  Judson.  She  also, 
as  we  might  have  anticipated,  was  "  the  most  finished  and 
faultless  specimen  of  an  American  woman."  She  had  been 
previously  married  to  the  Eev.  Mr.  Board  man,  "  a  tall,  manly, 
earnest  young  Christian,"  who  died  in  Burmah,  and  whose 
final  scene  was  so  striking,  that  "  the  deaths  of  Wolfe,  of  Chat- 
ham, and  of  the  younger  Adams" — we  have  no  assistance  in  de- 
termining who  the  latter  gentleman  was — "  have  been  not  un- 
fittingly compared  with  his."  It  was  natural  that  Mrs.  Board- 
man  should  lament  so  great  a  loss,  aud  Dr.  Worcester  records 
that  "  her  sorrow  was  deep  and  intense,  but  she  was  sustained 
by  Divine  consolation" — that  is,  she  married  Dr.  Judson,  to 
whom  she  bore  eight  children.  When  he  quitted  the  East, 
she  sailed  with  him  for  America,  but  died  on  the  passage,  at 
St.  Helena,  and  Judson,  who  was  present  at  her  death,  "  traced 
her  upward  flight." 

The  missionary  landed  alone  at  Boston,  in  1845,  and  his 
arrival  "produced  everywhere  a  thrill  of  emotion,  and  the 
strongest  desire  to  look  upon  the  man  who  had  suffered  and 
achieved  so  much  for  the  cause  of  Christ."  He  had  suffered 
the  loss  of  two  wives,  but  what  he  had  achieved,  in  any  cause 
whatever,  Dr.  Worcester  does  not  explain.  He  adds,  however, 
that  Judson  withdrew  himself  from  the  unwelcome  ovations 
which  greeted  him  in  Massachusetts.  Public  manifestations 
were  distasteful  to  a  man  "  whose  heart  was  bleeding  under  be- 
reavement ;"  and  who  knew,  moreover,  a  better  source  of  conso- 
lation than  any  which  they  could  offer  him.  And  so,  eight 
months  after  his  arrival  in  Boston,  he  once  more  led  to  the  hy- 
meneal altar  "  a  gifted  spirit,"  Miss  Emily  Chubbuck,  "  who  left 
the  companionship  of  early  friends  and  the  pleasing  paths  of 
literature,  to  become  the  successor  of  illustrious  women,  in  the 
sympathies  of  his  home,  and  the  labors  of  missionary  life." 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  303 

This  lady,  "  Mrs.  Clrubbuck  Judson,"  as  she  is  styled  in  the 
biography  to  distinguish  her  from  "  Mrs.  Boardman  Judson," 
survived  her  husband,  and  the  story,  which  is  more  fertile  in 
connubial  than  in  missionary  adventure,  fitly  terminates  with 
these  words  :  "  She  lives,  to  illustrate  the  graces  of  intellectual 
and  Christian  culture,  and  the  undying  strength  of  conjugal 
and  maternal  devotion."* 


THE   ANGLO-INDIAN   BISHOPS. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  notice  individually  the  various 
gentlemen  who,  during  the  present  century,  have  represented 
the  manifold  sects  of  Protestantism  in  India,  and  whose  claim 
to  the  character  of  apostolic  missionaries  was  not  less  substantial 
than  that  of  Judson  and  Buchanan.  Some  of  them  will  traverse, 
from  time  to  time,  the  scene  which  we  have  still  to  unroll ;  but 
it  is  now  time  to  consider,  in  a  separate  form,  the  special  opera- 
tions of  the  Anglican  Church  in  Hindostan,  when  she  at  length 
assumed,  in  1814-,  a  distinct  organization,  and  resolved  to  pre- 
sent herself  in  more  imposing  guise  to  the  contemplation  of  the 
Hindoos.  Up  to  that  date  she  had  salaried  chiefly  Danes  and 
Germans,  Lutherans  and  Calvinists,  because  no  others  would 
accept  her  commission.  But  if  the  Church  of  England,  accus- 
tomed to  such  alliances,  intrusted  her  honor  to  men  who 
brought  fresh  ignominy  on  a  name  already  somewhat  tarnished 
even  among  the  oriental  sects,  she  could  still  plead,  in  arrest  of 
condemnation,  that  their  irregularities  had  not  hitherto  been 
controlled  by  adequate  ecclesiastical  authority.  When  she  could 
find  time  to  dispatch  one  of  her  "bishops"  to  India,  the  world 
would  witness  a  very  different  exhibition  of  her  real  character. 
There  were  some  little  difficulties  to  be  removed, — the  acqui- 
escence of  the  government  to  be  solicited, — the  salary  to  be 
determined  and  secured, — and  then  a  new  era  would  dawn  for 
India.  So  at  last  she  chose  her  bishop,  and  the  object  of  her 
choice  was  Dr.  Thomas  Middleton. 

It  was  apparently  high  time  to  try  this  final  remedy.  "  From 
the  want  of  superintendence,"  said  Lord  Yalentia,  just  before 
Middleton  arrived,  "it  is  painful  to  observe  that  the  characters 
of  too  many  of  the  clergy  are  by  no  means  creditable  to  the 
doctrines  they  profess,  which,  together  with  the  unedifying  con- 
tests that  prevail  among  them  even  in  the  pulpit,  tend  to  lower 
the  religion,  and  its  followers,  in  the  eyes  of  the  natives  of  every 

*  Biographical  Sketches,  &c.,  pp.  99-111. 


304:  CHAPTER   III. 

description."*  As  a  remedy  for  these  evils,  Lord  Yalentia  rec- 
ommended the  appointment  of  a  bishop,  because  the  "natives 
of  India  are  greatly  swayed  by  external  appearances."  Let  us 
inquire,  then,  what  effect  was  produced  upon  them  by  the  ar- 
rival of  Dr.  Middleton. 

Mr.  Kaye,  who  is  always  at  hand  when  the  distinctive  attri- 
butes of  some  Protestant  dignitary  are  to  be  ruthlessly  exposed, 
tells  us  that  Middleton,  while  yet  in  England,  "had  obtained 
the  livings  of  Tansor  and  By thams,  a  prebendal  stall  at  Lincoln, 
the  Archdeaconry  of  Huntingdon,  the  Rectory  of  Puttenharn  in 
Hertfordshire,  and  the  great  parish  of  St.  Pancras  in  London." 
And  lest  this  impressive  catalogue  should  be  insufficient  to 
determine  Middleton's  real  character,  he  adds,  that  "  he  was  a 
cold  and  stately  formalist,  had  adecided  taste  for  military  salutes, 
and  struggled  manfully  for  social  precedence."f  Notwith- 
standing these  dispositions,  the  Church  of  England  sent  him  to 
India,  and  Mr.  Le  Bas  has  written  his  life.  To  his  pages  we 
must  refer  for  an  account  of  his  proceedings,  and  of  their 
influence  upon  religion  in  Hindostan. 

We  learn  from  Mr.  Le  Bas  that  Middleton  had  stipulated  for 
a  salary  of  five  thousand  pounds  a  year  for  himself,  two  thousand 
pounds  for  each  of  his  Archdeacons,  ten  thousand  rupees 
additional  for  himself  whenever  he  went  to  Madras,  ten 
thousand  when  he  visited  Bombay,  "  besides  the  use  of  a  ship." 
But  he  had  held  too  many  benefices  at  home  to  accept  this  as 
an -adequate  compensation  for  their  loss.  His  own  letters  show 
how  he  resented  the  wrong.  "  As  to  my  salary,"  he  says,  and 
he  said  it  very  often,  "the  chief-justice  has  four  thousand 
pounds  more,  and  the  puisnes  two  thousand  pounds,  allowing 
for  a  different  mode  of  payment,  though  their  jurisdiction  is 
limited  to  Bengal,  and  mine  extends  over  India.";):  The  greater 
opulence  of  "  the  puisnes"  he  seems  to  have  regarded  as  a  spe- 
cial indignity,  and  his  biographer  avows  his  own  disapproval  of 
the  incongurous  arrangement.  "  Lie  indicated  dissatisfaction," 
says  Mr.  Le  Bas,  "  at  the  scantiness  of  his  salary  ;"  but  the 
insensible  government  slighted  his  reiterated  complaint  and 
coldly  abandoned  him  to  his  poverty.  They  seem  to  have 
thought  that  as  he  received  altogether  more  than  ten  times 
the  salary  of  ail  Archbishop  in  France,  he  might  contrive  to 
live  upon  it. 

But  the  slenderness  of  his  income  was  not  the  only  source 
of  his  dissatisfaction.  He  considered  that  an  official  whose 
"jurisdiction  extended  over  India," — though  India  remained 

*  Travels,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  199. 

f  Christianity  in  India,  ch.  viii.,  pp.  286,  301. 

t  Life  of  Bishop  Middleton,  by  the  Rev.  C.Webb  Le  Bas,  vol.  i.,ch.  vi.,p.  177. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  305 

perfectly  unconscious  of  the  fact, — should  receive  a  due  amount 
of  public  homage.  Even  this  reasonable  expectation  was 
mortified.  "As  to  my  reception  on  landing,"  he  says,  with 
evident  emotion,  "  it  was  any  thing  but  what  it  ought  to  have 
been." 

In  this  generous  and  apostolic  temper  he  commenced  his 
episcopal  labors.  That  they  ever  extended  beyond  the  ranks 
of  those  who  were  called  his  clergy,  though  most  of  them  pro- 
fessed "  another  gospel"  than  his,  is  not  pretended  ;  but  at  all 
events  his  position  afforded  him  opportunities  for  excursions 
into  various  provinces  of  India,  and  the  facts  which  they 
brought  under  his  notice  must  have  tried  him  almost  as  severely 
as  the  insufficiency  of  his  income,  and  the  unexpected  coldness 
of  his  reception.  The  only  signs  of  life  and  progress  which 
ever  met  his  eye  were  exhibited  by  the  Catholic  missions,  while 
those  which  were  conducted  by  Protestants  were  already 
hastening  to  decay.  Thus,  at  Cuddalore,  he  received  "a 
melancholy  representation  of  the  decayed  state  of  the  mission  ;" 
while  of  the  once  vaunted  establishment  of  Tranquebar,  upon 
which  so  much  money  had  been  lavished,  we  are  told,  "  the 
mission  of  Tranquebar  was  a  source  of  perpetual  agitation  and 
distress  to  him.  It  was  hastening  to  decay,  and  apparently  to 
utter  extinction."*  And  not  only  was  this  the  unpleasant 
spectacle  which  met  him  everywhere,  but  even  the  English  dis- 
played a  culpable  indifference  to  the  claims  of  his  "jurisdiction." 
"  The  Baptists,"  he  says,  with  grave  irony,  "  seem  to  have 
abandoned  all  conversion  ~but  that  of  Europeans ;  but  they 
boast  of  their  success  among  his  Majesty's  European  troops, "- 
which  he  appears  to  have  thought  was  not  exactly  their  pro- 
fessed object  in  going  to  India.  On  the  other  hand,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  had  opportunities  of  noticing  that  "  the  Church  of 
Rome  has  done  wonders  in  the  East." 

Among  the  various  journeys  of  Dr.  Middleton  in  India,  the 
first  receives  the  special  attention  of  his  biographer,  and  is 
perhaps  the  only  one  which  calls  for  ours.  It  appears  that  he 
rarely  consented  to  resign  the  society  of  Mrs.  Middleton ;  and 
he  records  that,  on  a  certain  occasion,  when  the  wind  was 
inconveniently  high,  so  as  to  interfere  with  the  tranquil  enjoy- 
ment of  his  pastoral  voyage,  "While  I  was  endeavoring  to 
comfort  Mrs.  Middleton,  our  little  dog  jumped  upon  her  lap,  as 
if  fully  impressed  with  the  terror  of  the  scene."  Perhaps  some 
of  his  readers  may  have  thought  that  terror  was  not  exactly 
the  feature  which  predominated  in  the  scene;  and  that  the 
spectacle  of  a  "  bishop"  comforting  his  wife  in  a  gale  of  wind, 

*  Ch.  xvi.,  p.  481. 

21 


306  CHAPTER   III. 

\ 

with  such  assistance,  might  justify  other  emotions.  But  Mr. 
Le  Bas  would  reprove  this  levity,  for  he  considers  "  the  progress 
of  the  first  Protestant  Bishop  of  India  a  subject  of  high  and 
solemn  interest."*  Even  his  enthusiasm,  however,  will  allow 
that  men  who  are  familiar  with  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and 
the  annals  of  Catholic  missionaries,  may  reasonably  contemplate 
Dr.  Middleton's  journey  with  less  awe  than  himself;  and 
perhaps  even  be  pardoned  if  they  see  in  it  nothing  more 
impressive  than  the  harmless  excursion  of  a  highly  respectable 
gentleman,  accustomed  to  "struggle  for  social  precedence," 
who  deemed  himself  underpaid  with  five  thousand  a  year  and 
perquisites,  and  who  carried  with  him  wherever  he  went  a  wife, 
a  "little  dog,"  and  whatever  appendages  such  companions 
demand. f 

If  it  be  true,  as  Lord  Yalentia  intimates,  that  "  Hindoos  are 
much  swayed  by  external  appearances,"  we  may  easily  estimate 
the  impression  which  Dr.  Middleton  and  his  associates  must 
have  produced  upon  them.  "  Brahminism,"  says  the  censo- 
rious Mr.  Kaye,  "  stood  not  aghast  at  the  sight  of  the  lawn 
sleeves  of  the  bishop. "J  What  its  disciples,  who  are  some- 
what exacting  in  their  notions  of  what  is  becoming  in  teachers 
of  religion,  thought  of  his  manner  of  life,  is  nowhere  recorded  ; 
though  we  may  perhaps  infer  their  secret  judgment  from  the 
remarks  of  their  princes  to  Heber,  to  whom  they  continually 
oifered  shawls  and  veils,  with  the  courteous  explanation,  "  that 
they  would  probably  be  useful  in  his  Zenana." 

The  first  "  bishop"  whom  England  sent  to  India  does  not, 
then,  appear  to  have  produced  all  the  results  expected  from 
him.  "  We  do  not  know,"  says  an  historian,  alluding  to  his 
labors,  "that  the  diffusion  of  our  religion  among  Hindus, 
Mahometans,  or  Parsees,  has  been  very  materially  accelerated."^ 
Nor  need  this  surprise  us,  when  we  find  that  he  utterly 
failed  even  to  remedy  the  confusion  and  disorder  among  his 
co-religionists.  "All  the  Protestants,"  he  tells  us  himself, 
<%  Wesleyans,  Baptists,  and  American  Puritans,  act  together  with 
tolerable  cordiality,  and  the  clergy  countenance  them,  so  far 
as  they  can,  without  making  improper  concessions.  In  this 
manner  the  work  is  going  on,  and  otherwise  it  would  not  go 
on  at  all."||  "One  of  the  early  sources  of  disquietude  to  the 
first  Anglican  prelate  in  India,"  we  are  told  by  General  Parlby, 

*  Ch.  vi.,  p.  200. 

f  "  Ed  e  un  tal  uomo  che  deve  predicare  il  Mistero  della  Croce  e  le  vertfc  del 
Vangelo?  Quale  derisione!  quale  impostura!  quale  follie!"  Ventura,  La 
Hdleze  della  Fede,  tome  ii.,  p.  97. 

\  Administration  of  the  E.  I.  Company,  p.  646. 

£  History  of  British  India,  by  Charles  Macfarlane,  ch.  xxx.,  p.  375  (1857). 

1  Life,  ch.  xii.,  p.  347. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  307 

arose  out  of  a  demand  by  the  Presbyterians  "for  the  alternate 
use  of  the  cathedral  in  Calcutta."*  The  last  of  them,  Dr.  Cot- 
ton, appears  to  have  given  the  Presbyterians  even  more  than 
they  asked  for.  "  In  India,"  an  Anglican  society  was  lately 
informed  by  Mr.  Beresford  Hope,  "  the  Bishop  of  Calcutta  has 
ordered  his  chaplains  to  allow  the  Presbyterian  chaplains  to  go 
shares  in  their  chapels,  "t  Such  has  been  the  progress  since 
Dr.  Middleton's  time. 

It  is  true  he  deplored  "  the  discordant  tenets  of  the  mission- 
aries," and  apparently  not  without  reason.  "  Next  to  the  sus- 
picion that  the  Europeans  are  generally  destitute  of  all  real 
religion,"  says  his  biographer,  "  the  grand  impediment  the 
Gospel  has  to  contend  with  among  idolaters  arises  from  the 
multiplicity  of  shapes  under  which  our  visible  religion  presents 
itself  to  their  notice.  Their  observation  uniformly  is,  that  they 
should  think  much  better  of  Christianity,  if  there  were  not 
quite  so  many  different  kinds  of  it"$  Dr.  Middleton  and  his 
successors  were  not  able  to  afford  the  heathen  much  assistance 
in  this  difficulty,  by  diminishing  the  number  of  conflicting 
sects  whose  existence  provoked  their  comments,  and  perhaps 
justified  their  contempt  for  the  "visible  religion"  of  their 
masters.  " Romanism  is  one"  says  a  writer  whom  we  shall 
have  to  notice  hereafter;  "Mohamedism  is  one;  and  Pagan- 
ism is  one ;  but  we  are  not  one.  And  until  we  become  one, 
the  world  will  never  be  convinced  "§  The  prospects  of  the 
heathen  world  are,  then,  somewhat  gloomy,  as  there  is  not  yet 
much  sign  of  Protestantism  converging  to  unity ;  and  we 
shall  find  reason  in  the  course  of  these  pages  for  believing,  that 
the  manifold  sects  which  it  has  generated  are  chiefly  occupied, 
in  all  parts  of  the  globe,  in  making  the  conversion  of  the 
heathen  impossible.  Failing  in  all  other  aims,  they  are  only 
too  successful  in  this.j  "  A  large  portion  of  the  sterility  of  our 
missions,"  says  Dr.  Grant,  "  may  be  attributed  to  that  discord 
which  Christianity" — he  means  Protestantism — "  exhibits  in 
the  very  sight  of  the  unbeliever."  And  he  repeats  the  barren 
confession  again  and  again.  "  Must  there  not  arise,"  he  asks, 
"  a  strong  presumption  in  -the  mind  of  an  unbeliever  against 
the  Divine  origin  of  that  doctrine,  or  system,  which  cannot  be 

*  TJie  Establishment  of  the  Anglican  Church  in  India,  p  17. 

f  Quoted  in  The  Times,  June  G,  1861. 

i  Life,  ch.  v..  p.  132. 

|  Reed's  Visit  to  the  American  Churches,  vol.  ii.,  p.  293. 

||  Two  centuries  ago,  a  well-known  Protestant  writer,  in  a  formal  treatise  on 
the  conversion  of  the  heathen,  while  admitting  that  the  "  disputationes  et  rixae 
inter  Christianos"  were  one  of  the  fatal  fruits  of  the  so-called  Reformation,  add- 
ed, "  unde  Christiani  fcro  prius  deveniunt  Gentiles,  quam  Gentiles  Christian!." 
J.  Hoornbeek,  De  Connersione  Indorum  ct  Oentilium,  lib.  i.,  cap.  i.,  p.  3  (1669) 


308  CHAPTER   III. 

clearly  ascertained,  or  on  which  its  upholders  cannot  unite  ?" 
He  quotes  also  the  observation  of  a  gentleman  familiar  with 
Indian  missions,  who  told  him  :  "  I  question  whether  any  hut 
those  who  have  come  into  contact  with  it  as  missionaries  can 
realize  its  evil  in  a  missionary  form  to  the  heathen."* 

Dr.  Grant  appears  to  forget  that  every  one  of  these  sects  had 
been  bred  from  the  Church  of  England,  and  that  it  was  she 
who  created  and  then  sent  them  to  India.  Her  clergy  also,  as 
we  shall  see  presently  iu  the  case  of  Anglican  bishops  of  Cal- 
cutta, are  often  the  first  to  justify  by  their  practice  the  very 
dissensions  which  officially  they  are  supposed  to  condemn. 
Even  in  explaining  to  the  educated  heathen  a  phenomenon 
which  he  is  sufficiently  acute  to  notice  and  appreciate,  they  use 
such  language  as  the  following  :  "  I  will  not  conceal,"  says  Dr. 
Eowland  Williams,  in  a  book  intended  to  assist  the  Hindoo  in 
approaching  to  Christianity,  "nor  need  you  wonder,  that  with 
a  general  agreement  among  Christians  as  to  the  essentials  of 
their  faith,  there  are  points  as  to  some  of  its  aspects  variously 
disputed"f — and  it  is  hoped  by  such  admissions  to  conceal  from 
the  subtle  pagan  the  real  character  of  Protestantism  ! 

Dr.  Williams  cannot  but  know  that  that  form  of  religious 
opinion  has  been  before  the  heathen  for  half  a  century,  and  that 
he  has  already  judged  it,  as  we  shall  see  again  and  again  in 
future  chapters  of  this  work.  In  India,  Protestantism  has  dis- 
played life  and  energy  only  in  the  ceaseless  conflicts  of  its 
various  sects.  As  far  back  as  1813,  Mr.  Marsh  declared  before 
the  House  of  Commons:  "  Provided  India  is  supplied  with  a 
plentiful  assortment  of  sects — Calvinists,  Unitarians,  Methodists, 
Moravians,  &c. — no  one  seems  to  feel  the  least  solicitude 
whether  the  Christianity  that  is  to  be  taught  there  be  the 
genuine  language  of  its  Author,  or  the  dream  of  mysticism  and 
folly."^  "  If  they  were  to  succeed,"  said  Major  Scott  Waring, 
who  saw  them  multiplying  on  every  side,  "  we  should  have  as 
many  different  sects  as  there  are  castes  among  the  Hindoos."§ 
Fortunately  they  have  failed  ;  but  far  from  diminishing  in 
numbers,  we  find  a  celebrated  writer  still  noticing,  in  1858, 
"  the  itinerant  expounders  of  the  faith,  who,  to  the  great 
astonishment  of  the  Asiatics,  present  themselves  in  the  most 
various  forms  as  the  ministers  of  many  different  churches,  yet 
all  claiming  to  be  of  one  religion  !'  |  And  in  1859,  Mr.  Russell 
once  more  deplores,  that  "  the  differences  between  Christian 

*  Bampton  Lectures,  app.,  p.  316. 

f  Christianity  and  Hindotism,  by  Rowland  Williams,  B.D. ;  p.  507  (1856). 

}  Speech  of  Charles  Marsh,  Esq.,  M.P.,  July  1,  1813. 

4  Observations,  &c.,  p.  45. 

|  The  Times,  21st  October,  1858. 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  309 

missionaries  do  not  present  a  very  encouraging  front  to  the 
Hindoo  or  Mussulman  would-be  neophyte;"  while  another 
writer,  who  spent  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  in  India, 
declares  that  "  the  rancor  and  bitterness"  displayed  by  the 
various  Protestant  sects  tawards  each  other  "  surpassed  the  fa- 
naticism of  the  Mussulmans  at  Hyderabad,  and  the  violence  of 
the  Brahmins  at  Poonah."*  We  shall  see  the  same  melancholy 
spectacle  exhibited  in  every  part  of  the  world,  and  everywhere 
with  such  disastrous  results,  that  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that 
the  emissaries  whom  Protestantism  has  dispatched  to  every 
land  are  only  employed  in  increasing  the  perplexity,  and  rivet- 
ing the  bonds,  of  the  pagan,  by  convincing  him  of  the  earthly 
origin  of  all  religions  save  his  own. 

But  to  return  to  Dr.  Middleton.  Perhaps  the  only  thing  in 
connection  with  him  which  need  excite  our  surprise,  is  the  fact, 
which  will  always  remain  unexplained,  that  any  one  should 
have  thought  it  necessary  to  write  his  life.  The  solitary  inci- 
dent which  Mr.  Le  Bas  is  able  to  record  in  two  large  volumes, 
is  his  establishment  of  a  "  college,"  which,  he  must  have  known, 
has  proved  a  total  failure  ;  and  to  which,  as  we  shall  presently 
learn,  the  Hindoos  refuse  to  send  their  children,  because  its 
scholars  invariably  become  atheists.  Middleton  proposed,  as  a 
bait  to  reluctant  missionaries  and  professors,  enormous  salaries, 
which  excited  even  in  India  such  comments  as  the  following  : 
"  The  bishop's  plan  is  a  piece  of  worldly  mechanism,  construct- 
ed to  attract  qualified  performers  by  a  direct  appeal  to  those 
feelings  which  regulate  the  choice  of  professions  by  the  calcu- 
lations of  interest."f  The  professors,  it  appears,  were  easily 
found,  but  Mr.  Howard  Malcolm  assures  us,  in  1839,  that 
"there  have  as  yet  never  been  more  than  ten  or  twelve  students 
at  a  time.  The  salary  of  the  principal  is  one  thousand  pounds 
per  annum,  and  of  the  second  teacher  seven  hundred  pounds.";): 
And  in  185T,  exactly  forty  years  after  its  foundation,  M.  de 
Yalbezen  noticed  on  the  spot  that "  the  bishop's  college  is  almost 
entirely  abandoned  ;"§  although,  as  Count  de  Warren  observed, 
when  he  visited  it  in  1843,  "  it  admits  Christian  children,  wheth- 
er European  or  native."] 

But  it  is  time  to  pass  from  Middleton  to  his  successors.  What- 
ever the  later  Anglican  bishops  in  India  may  prove,  they  can 
hardly  present  fewer  claims  to  our  esteem  than  the  first  of  their 
number.  Towards  the  close  of  his  career,  when  his  wife's 

*  Thirty  Tears  in  India,  by  Major  Bevan,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  102. 

f  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  ix.,  p.  339. 

I  Travels  in  8.  Eastern  Asia,  vol.  i.,  ch.  i.,  p.  17. 

§  Les  Anglais  et  I'Inde,  par  E.  de  Valbezen,  ch.  iii.,  p.  162. 

|  L'Inde  Anglaise,  tome  iii.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  233. 


310  CHAPTER  III. 

health  became  a  subject  of  anxiety  to  him,  Mr.  Le  Bas  relates, 
that  "  his  terrors  were  aggravated  by  the  circumstance  that  the 
loss  of  Mrs.  Middleton  would  consign  him.  to  a  state  of  the  most 
hopeless  and  appalling  desertion.  Without  her,  the  world  was, 
to  his  imagination,  a  scene  of  such  dreariness  and  bereavement, 
that  his  heart  sunk  at  the  very  thoughts  of  it."*  "We  can  only 
suppose  that  he  wished  to  show,  by  these  ignoble  words,  that  it 
is  unreasonable  to  ask  for  apostolic  gifts  in  an  Anglican  prelate. 
The  indiscretion  of  biographers  is  proverbial ;  but  when  Mr.  Le 
Bas  takes  so  much  pains  to  reveal  Middleton's  real  character, 
why  does  he  still  insist  upon  the  world  accepting  him  as  a  saint 
and  a  hero  ? 

Of  those  who  in  succession  filled  the  place  which  Middleton 
had  now  vacated,  only  one  has  left  a  name  to  posterity.  We 
would  speak  with  all  tenderness  of  the  amiable  and  accom- 
plished Heber ;  and  if  we  might  view  him  simply  as  a  gentle- 
man, a  poet,  and  a  scholar,  would  willingly  add  our  wreath  to 
the  laurel  crown  which  popular  sympathy  has  awarded  him. 
But  we  have  to  estimate  him,  not  as  a  man,  but  as  a  missionary, 
and  may  not  concede  to  purely  natural  gifts  the  homage  which 
is  due  only  to  such  as  are  supernatural. 

It  has  often  been  remarked  that  Heber, — whose  poetical  tem- 
per was  inflamed  in  early  life  with  tales  of  oriental  romance, 
and  to  whose  imagination  India  was  a  land  "rich  with  barbaric 
gold," — was  singularly  deficient  even  in  such  spirituality  as  his 
form  of  religion  encourages.  In  the  three  ample  volumes  which 
disclose  the  secret  thoughts  of  his  heart,  and  record  the  daily 
coimnunings  of  his  soul,  there  is  hardly  so  much  as  a  solitary 
exhibition  of  devout  and  Christian  feeling.  He  writes  always 
as  a  refined  and  speculative  tourist,  never  as  a  missionary,  nor 
as  one  to  whom  the  contemplation  of  Divine  truths  was  famil- 
iar. "  His  published  Travels  in  India,"  says  a  Protestant 
writer,  "  contain  little  or  nothing  to  indicate  piety  ;"f  and  in 
this  remark  there  is  no  undue  severity.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  refreshing  to  read  volumes  in  which  there  is  absolutely 
no  trace  of.  the  nauseous  phraseology  which  is  usually  the 
staple  of  such  compositions.  You  will  find  nothing  in  Heber 
about  "calls"  which  he  never  received,  and  "conversions" 
which  never  took  place.  Perhaps  there  are  only  two  men  in 
the  whole  army  of  Protestant  missionaries, — Heber  and  Living- 
stone,— whose  pages  are  unsullied  by  the  dismal  jargon  of  cant, 
and  whose  manly  natures  disdained  to  sacrifice  to  the  comic 
divinities  of  methodism,  the  Pan  and  Silenus  of  the  conven- 
ticle. 

*  Life,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  309. 

f  Howard  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  77. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  311 

Heber  seems,  like  Middleton,  to  have  not  only  exerted  no 
influence  whatever  upon  the  heathen  world  outside  his  commu- 
nion, but  to  have  contended  in  vain  with  the  disorders  which 
prevailed  within  it.  "Instances  of  actual  conversion  to  Chris- 
tianity," he  says,  "  are  as  yet  very  uncommon  ;"  or,  as  he  ex- 
presses it  a  little  later,  "  few  indeed  in  number,  but  enough  to 
show  that  the  thing  is  not  impossible."*  "The  Roman  Catho- 
lics," he  confesses,  "  are  considerably  more  numerous ;"  and 
then,  under  the  tyranny  of  prejudices  from  which  even  his  emi- 
nent qualities  did  not  exempt  him,  he  tries  to  defame  their 
character.  Sometimes  this  petty  and  ungenerous  temper  was 
rebuked  even  by  men  of  his  own  religion,  and  one  example  de- 
serves mention.  Heber  had  stooped  to  sneer  at  a  Catholic  mis- 
sionary, venerated  even  by  Protestants  as  the  very  "  type  of  a 
Christian  minister,"  and  drew  upon  himself  this  rebuke : 
"  Bishop  Heber  seems  scarcely  to  have  done  justice  to  this 
excellent  man,  in  ascribing  his  popularity  to  the  smoothness 
of  his  manner,  and  his  tact  in  administering  to  the  self-love  of 
his  associates."f 

Of  his  owrn  position  among  the  rival  sects  which,  in  the  very 
presence  of  the  heathen,  were  waging  perpetual  war  with  each 
other,  he  often  speaks  bitterly.  "  Our  chief  hindrances,"  he 
says,  "  are  some  of  those  who  are  professedly  engaged  in  the 
same  work  with  ourselves,  the  Dissenters.  These  are  indeed 
very  civil,  and  affect  to  rejoice  at  our  success  ;  but  they,  some 
how  or  other,  cannot  help  interfering,  and  setting  up  rival 
schools  close  to  ours;  and  they  apparently  find  it  easier  to  draw 
off  our  pupils  than  to  look  out  for  fresh  and  more  distant  fields 
of  exertion  and  enterprise."^; 

Yet  Heber's  own  clergy  seem  to  have  instructed  their  rivals 
in  the  very  arts  which  he  reproved.  The  twentieth  report  of  the 
"  Calcutta  Auxiliary  Baptist  Missionary  Society"  complains, 
with  apparent  reason,  that  when  they  "  dismissed  a  native 
preacher  for  gross  immorality,  the  missionaries  of  the  Propaga- 
tion Society  received  him  into  the  Church  of  England  ;"§  and 
in  our  own  day,  a  Presbyterian  writer  reproaches  "  the  frequent 
laxity  of  some  of  the  Church  of  England  missions,"  on  the  same 
ground,  that  they  eagerly  receive  converts  dismissed  from  other 
sects  on  account  of  their  irregularities.!  The  inconvenience, 
however,  of  the  continual  migration  of  "converts"  from  one  sect 
to  another  appears  at  last  to  Lave  instigated  one  Anglo-Indian 

*  Heber's  Indian  Journal,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  203  (1843). 

f  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xv.,  p.  150. 

|  Vol.  ii.,  Correspondence,  p.  189. 

§  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxxvi.,  p.  8. 

II  Mackenzie,  Six  Years  in  India,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  145. 


312  CHAPTER  III. 

prelate  to  "  discourage  all  attempts  at  prosely  tism  from  any  other 
Protestant  Church."* 

The  Lutheran  clergy  appear  to  have  given  Heber  a  world  of 
trouble,  from  which  he  could  not  well  escape  as  long  as  they 
were  actually  employed,  as  they  are  to  this  day,  as  ministers  of 
the  Church  of  England.  In  the  capital  itself  he  must  have 
witnessed  strange  sights;  for  even  "the  Mission  Church  at  Cal- 
cutta was  then  occupied  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ringeltaube,  a  clergy- 
man of  the  Lutheran  Church,  who  had  been  sent  to  India  under 
the  patronage  of  the  Society  for  Promoting  Christian  Knowl- 
edge !"f  Heber  had,  therefore,  no  power  to  correct,  nor  even 
any  right  to  rebuke  them;  and  though  he  professed  to  be  indig- 
nant with  some  of  the  English  clergy  for  openly  communicating 
with  heretics,  he  actually  allowed,  when  reproached  by  a  Luther- 
an minister,  that  he  was  perfectly  ready  to  imitate  them.  "  Were 
I  to  return  to  Germany,"  he  wrote  apologetically  to  the  Rev. 
Deocar  Schmidt,  "I  would  again,  as  before,  humbly  and  thank- 
fully avail  myself  of  the  preaching  and  sacramental  ordinances 
of  the  Lutheran  Evangelical  Church.";);  He  seems,  therefore,  to 
have  anticipated  that  remarkable  theory,  more  fully  developed 
in  our  own  day,  which  makes  Church  communion  a  question  of 
geography,  and  condemns  in  one  province  as  an  act  of  schism 
what  in  the  next  it  approves  as  Christian  and  Catholic.  It  was 
intolerable  for  Lutherans  to  oppose  Anglicanism  at  Calcutta, 
but  it  would  have  been  equally  criminal  in  Anglicans  to  oppose 
Lutheranism  at  Berlin.  We  can  hardly  be  surprised  if  in  their 
conflict  with  the  Protestant  bishops  of  India  the  Lutherans 
always  triumphed. 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  English  religion  failed,  as  complete- 
ly under  Heber  as  it  did  under  Middleton,  either  to  attract  the 
heathen  without,  or  to  quiet  the  divisions  within  its  fold.  It 
would,  however,  have  been  something  if  the  Protestant  bishops 
had  been  able  at  least  to  inspire  their  own  clergy  with  more 
generous  feelings  than  they  had  been  wont  to  display  before  their 
episcopal  rulers  arrived.  Even  this  they  failed  to  effect.  Long 
after  both  Heber  and  Middleton  had  left  this  world,  arid  bid  an 
eternal  farewell  to  its  brief  honors  and  emoluments,  the  un- 
scrupulous acquisitiveness  of  the  Anglican  clergy  was  a  jest  in 
Indian  Society,  so  that  even  the  gravest  and  most  religious 
statesmen  of  that  country  thought  it  a  fair  subject  of  remark. 
"  Owen,  the  late  Chaplain  General,  died  last  year," — 1825, — 
says  Lord  Teignmouth, "  worth  more  than  one  hundred  thousand 
pounds.  I  speak  positively  as  to  the  amount,  on  the  authority 

*  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxxvi.,  p.  275  (1841). 

f  Pearson's  Memoirs  of  Buchanan,  vol.  i.,  p.  147. 

j  Correspondence,  p.  249. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  313 

of  one  who  went  to  Doctors'  Commons  and  procured  a  copy  of 
his  will."*  And  this,  though  an  extreme,  was  not  a  solitary 
case.  "  It  would  seem,"  says  a  writer  who  has  already  given  us 
valuable  information,  "  that  at  the  close  of  the  last  century  the 
Company's  chaplains  were  a  money-making  race  of  men.  There 
is  a  curious  entry  in  the  journal  of  Mr.  Kiernander,  the  old 
Danish  missionary,  running  in  these  words :  '  The  Rev.  Mr. 
Blanshard  is  preparing  to  go  to  England  upon  an  American  ship 
in  about  a  fortnight,  worth  five  lakhs  of  rupees.  Mr.  Owen  two 
and  a  half  lakhs.  Mr.  Johnson  three  and  a  half  lakhs/  An 
average  annual  saving,  if  Mr.  K.  is  to  be  trusted,  of  two  thou- 
sand live  hundred  pounds!  These  churchmen  must  have  de- 
voted themselves  to  something  more  lucrative  than  the  cure  of 
souls,  and  the  burial  of  the  dead.  What  it  was  may  readily  be 
conjectured. "f  We  have  no  further  aid  in  determining  to  what 
kin'd  of  traffic  Mr.  Kaye's  conjecture  alludes,  but  may  perhaps 
assume  that  it  was  nothing  more  discreditable  than  the  pursuits 
condemned  in  the  caustic  apothegm  of  Bernoiilli :  "Tout  ce  qui 
va  dans  1'Inde,  militaire,  medecin,  missionaire,  est  marchand, 
ou  le  devient  /";£  or  the  equally  emphatic  statement  of  Haafner, 
"  Personne  ne  part  pour  1'Inde  que  dans  1'intention  de  faire 
fortune."§  But  this  point,  as  illustrating  the  character  of  Prot- 
estant missionaries,  deserves  further  notice. 

"  For  some  years,"  observes  a  great  Indian  authority,  "  it  was 
a  common  practice  of  many  of  the  missionaries  in  India  to  talk 
of  the  hardships  of  their  situation,  the  sacrifices  they  had  made 
in  leaving  their  family,  friends,  and  native  land,  thus  creating 
very  erroneous  impressions  upon  people  in  England.  Now,  I 
believe,  for  the  most  part,  that  those  who  come  to  India  as  mis- 
sionaries are  far  better  off  in  means,  situation  of  life,  and  general 
comfort,  than  they  would  have  been  in  England."  After  other 
remarks,  in  which  he  openly  ridicules  their  pretended  "  devo- 
tion to  the  cause"  as  a  motive,  in  any  degree,  for  coming  to 
India,  and  observing  that  u  their  labor  is  infinitely  less  than  it 
would  have  been  in  England,"  he  continues  thus :  "  The  clergy 
of  the  Church  of  England,  too,  will  not,  I  think,  refuse  to  allow 
that  their  situation  has,  with  few  exceptions,  been  improved  by 
their  appointment  to  India.'  .  .  .  Those  of  the  lowest  origin 
usually  give  themselves  the  greatest  airs.  This  affectation  is, 
however,  on  the  wane ;  men  have  begun  to  find  out  that  no ' 
one  believes  their  pretensions."! 

*  Life  of  Lord  Teignmouth,  vol.  ii.,  p.  465. 

I  Kaye's  Administration  of  the  E.  I.  G.,  p.  630. 

I  Description  de  1'Inde,  tome  iii.,  Supplement,  p.  105. 

t  Voyages  dans  la  Peninsule  Occidentale  de  llnde, par  M.  J.  Haafner, tome i., 
. 

8  Notes  on  Indian  Affairs,  by  the  Hon.  F.  J.  Shore,  vol.  ii.,  p.  470. 


314  CHAPTER   III. 

It  is,  perhaps,  not  surprising  that  these  pretensions  should 
excite  derision  in  India,  where  the  true  position  of  the  so-called 
missionaries  is  perfectly  appreciated.  They  are  not  ignorant, 
for  example,  that  besides  the  large  salaries  which  they  receive, 
the  "  Calcutta  Diocesan  Additional  Clergy  Society  require  the 
residents  of  the  station,-'  i.e.)  the  English,  "to  pay  one  hundred 
and  fifty  pounds  for  the  clergyman's  passage  and  outfit,  and  to 
deposit  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  in  order  to  send  the 
clergyman  back  to  England  in  the  event  of  failure  of  health. 
They  are  also  required  to  build  a  parsonage,  and  keep  it  in 
repair."*  Such  are  the  "sacrifices  to  which  the* Anglican 
clergy  are  subject  in  India. 

Nor  can  we  believe  that,  as  time  goes  on,  they  learn  to 
manifest  a  more  apostolic  character.  A  letter,  written  from 
India  to  a  mother,  in  1858,  by  a  clergyman's  wife,  and  commu- 
nicated to  the  writer  of  these  pages,  contains  the  following, 

among  similar  examples :  "  Dr. shirks  work  so  very  much, 

and  pretends  weakness  so  much.  It  is  very  disgusting  to  see  a 
man  like  him,  the  picture  of  health,  pretending  weakness  to 
shirk  work,  yet  able  to  amuse  himself,  and  go  to  large  dinner- 
parties almost  every  night.  You  would  be  shocked  at  the 
style  of  clergy  out  here.  It  seems  to  me  that  they  remain  for 
the  pay,  and  put  aside  conscience  as  regards  work.  Money , 
money!  is  the  cry  here  with  almost  every  one."  This  lady 
adds:  "Thank  God,  my  darling,"  meaning  her  husband,  "is 
not  of  this  sort." 

The  progress  of  time,  as  we  have  said,  does  not  appear  to 
correct  these  infirmities.  In  1859,  we  find  Dr.  Cotton,  the  Prot- 
estant Bishop  of  Calcutta,  consoling  his  clergy  under  the  dis- 
dainful reproaches  of  the  Calcutta  Review,  whose  censures,  he 
observes,  "  were  circulated  as  a  tract,  in  which  the  missionaries 
are  identified  with  the  aristocratic  and  exclusive  English, 
4  riding  in  proud  vehicles,  indulging  in  costly  and  refined  ob- 
servances, with  doors  besieged  by  pampered  menials.' ':  Such 
rebukes,  Dr.  Cotton  assures  his  colleagues,  are  clearly  unreason- 
able ;  and  that  he  might  furnish  them  with  a  peremptory 
refutation  of  all  such  peevish  criticisms,  he  suggests  to  them  a 
convenient  and  effective  reply:  "You  may  answer,"  he  says, 
"  that  asceticism  is  no  part  of  the  Gospel  system"\ 

*  Colonial  Church  Chronicle,  vol.  v.,  p.  305. 

f  Primary  Charge  of  the  Lord  Bishop  of  Calcutta,  quoted  in  the  Overland 
Bombay  Times,  November  26, 1859.  Let  it  be  permitted,  before  we  proceed,  to 
contrast  the  words  of  a  true  Christian  priest  with  those  of  this  Anglican  prelate 
on  the  same  subject.  The  reader  will  judge  which  sound  like  an  echo  from 
Heaven.  "  There  were  five  spiritual  presences  in  the  Cave  of  Bethlehem.  They 
were  Poverty,  Abandonment,  Rej  ection,  Secrecy,  and  Mortification.  They  started 
with  the  Infant  Jesus  from  the  Cave,  and  they  went  with  Him  to  the  Tomb.  They 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  315 

It  is  consoling  to  turn  from  these  ignoble  pictures  to  the  con- 
templation of  another  class  of  missionaries,  whom  Providence 
has  employed  the  same  witnesses  to  describe.  Mr.  Malcolm 
reluctantly  confesses  of  the  Catholic  clergy,  "  they  are  men  of 
good  morals,  and  live  far  more  humbly  than  other  missionaries ;" 
while  he  adds  that  "  their  stipend  is  twenty  pounds  per  annum." 
And  even  this  revenue,  which  would  have  appeared  a  revolt- 
ing absurdity  to  Dr.  Middleton  or  Dr.  Cotton,  is  more  than  they 
sometimes  receive ;  for  another  writer  recounts  with  amaze- 
ment that  "  the  missionaries  manage  to  live  and  clothe  them- 
selves on  one  shilling  per  day.  Though  there  are  sixty-two 
Europeans  employed,  and  many  churches  to  repair,  and  endless 
lawsuits  to  undertake,  the  whole  mission  at  Madura,"  with  its 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  Catholics,  "only  costs  one  thousand 
five  hundred  pounds  per  annum  !"*  Why  should  these  writers 
be  astonished  that  there  are  still  in  the  world  men  who  have 
ceased  to  "  mind  earthly  things,"  and  wrho  can  affirm,  as  St. 
Peter  did,  without  either  shame  or  ostentation,  "silver  and  gold 
have  I  none?"  The  apostolic  missionary  is  content  with  the 
re\vards  which  his  Master  knows  how  to  give  him  in  secret ;  it 
is  "  the  hireling,  whose  own  the  sheep  are  not,"  who  bargains, 
like  a  merchant,  for  salary  and  pension,  before  he  will  lift  up  his 
voice  to  the  heathen ;  and  who,  like  the  established  clergy  in 
India,  "after  ten  years  is  entitled  to  the  half-pay  of  a  major, 
after  seven  years  to  that  of  a  captain. "f  The  world  exhibits, 
in  its  various  scenes,  many  a  striking  contrast;  but  what  con- 
trast does  earth  manifest  to  us  like  that  which  exists  between 
the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  missionary? 

It  is  probable  that  Heber  suffered  many  a  pang  in  the  society 
to  which  his  office  introduced  him ;  but  though  his  refinement 

are  stern  powers,  and  their  visages  unlovely,  and  their  voices  harsh,  and  their 
company  unwelcome  to  the  natural  man.  .  .  .  The  companionship  of  the  Beasts, 
and  the  room  they  had  as  it  were  lent  Him  to  be  born  in,  betokened  His  ex- 
ceeding Poverty.  The  Manger  was  the  type  of  Abandonment.  The  refuse 
Straw,  on  which  He  lay,  and  which  perhaps  Joseph  gathered  from  under  the 
feet  of  the  cattle,  well  expressed  that  rejection  wherewith  men  have  visited 
and  will  visit  Him  and  His  Church  through  all  generations  till  the  end 

"  There  was  something,  therefore,  in  these  five  things,  which  expressed  the 
character  of  the  Incarnate  Word.  They  portrayed  His  human  sanctity.  They 
were  a  prophecy  of  the  Three-and-Thirty  Years.  They  foreshowed  the  spirit  and 
genius  of  Ills  Church  in  all  ages.  They  reversed  the  j  udgments  of  the  world,  and 
were  new  standards  according  to  which  the  last  Universal  Judgment  was  to  be 
measured.  They  .  .  were  in  themselves  a  revelation.  .  .  Even  now,  what  are  all 
heresies,  which  concern  holy  living,  but  a  dishonoring  of  them  ?  Asceticism  is 
part  of  the  ignominy  of  the  Cross  ;  and  modern  heathenism  turns  from  it  with 
the  same  disdain  which  the  elder  heathenism  of  Greece  and  Rome  showed  for 
it  in  the  days  of  the  persecuting  Ca?sars."  F.  Faber,  Bethlehem,  ch.  iii.,  p.  145. 

*  The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste,  ch.  v.,  p.  1UO. 

\  The  Wonders  of  Elora.  ch.  xix.,  p.  489. 


316  CHAPTER   III. 

was  often  wounded,  his  spiritual  nature  endured  the  trial 
without  a  shock.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  how  little  claim 
this  amiable  man, — whose  wretched  death  excites  no  remark  on 
the  part  of  his  biographers, — had  to  the  supernatural  character ; 
but  the  evidence  would  be  both  painful  and  superfluous.  He 
does  not,  indeed,  affect  any  other  character  than  that  which 
was  really  his  own.  He  was  a  man  of  cultivated  mind  and 
refined  tastes,  but  he  hardly  pretended  to  be  an  apostle.  When 
he  goes  on  a  visitation  tour,  he  says,  with  a  simplicity  which 
was  free  from  all  affectation,  "  I  left,  with  a  heavy  heart,  my 
dear  wife  and  children,  for  the  visitation  of  Madras  and  the 
South  of  India."*  The  world  is  reasonable,  and  does  not 
expect  an  Anglican  bishop  to  manifest  any  higher  feeling  than 
this.  He  may  be,  and  often  is,  courteous,  liberal,  and  upright ; 
but  St.  Paul's  advice  he  cannot  follow,  for  he  hungers  after  the 
same  earthly  pleasures  which  other  men  crave;  and  though 
Holy  Scripture  points  to  a  loftier  state,  and  promises  special 
rewards  to  those  who  embrace  it,  his  ambition  is  content  with  a 
lower  lot.  To  Heber  the  life  of  St.  Paul,  of  St.  Francis,  of  de 
Britto,  and  their  brethren,  would  have  been  simply  intolerable 
for  a  single  week.  He  was  an  excellent  specimen  of  an  English 
gentleman,  but  he  was  no  more  an  apostolic  missionary,  dead 
to  self  and  the  world,  than  the  late  Duke  of  Wellington,  or  the 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  unreality  of  a  certain  class  of 
Anglican  writers,  that  one  of  their  principal  authorities  could 
venture  to  say,  "  Men  like  Henry  Marty n  and  Heber,  Rome 
would  have  canonized  long  since."f  Rome,  as  this  reviewer 
calls  the  Church,  would  have  declined  to  employ  such  men 
even  as  "  ostiarii." 

There  is  perhaps  no  need  to  trace  further  the  succession  of 
obscure  names  which  have  been  connected  with  the  Protestant 
bishoprics  in  India.  The  life  of  the  last,  for  they  have  all 
found  biographers,  has  lately  been  written  by  his  son-in-law, 
and  is  quite  as  instructive  as  any  which  preceded  it.  Dr.  Daniel 
Wilson  does  not  appear  to  have  been  happier  than  Heber  or 
Middleton  in  his  dealings  with  Hindoos,  but  his  experience 
among  his  own  countrymen  exactly  resembled  theirs.  "  Sad, 
sad,"  he  says,  in  almost  his  first  letter  from  India,  "  has  been 
the  unsettling  of  the  diocese  since  Bishop  Middleton !" — in 
whose  time,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  sufficiently  deplorable. 
Dr.  Wilson  seems  to  have  followed  Heber's  practice  rather  than 
Middleton's  in  his  intercourse  with  other  Protestant  sects. 


*  Journal,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  172. 

f  Christian  Remembrancer,  October,  1859,  p.  375. 


MISSIONS  IN   INDIA.  317 

"  My  heart,"  he  tells  Bridgman,  an  American  missionary,  "  is 
with  all  of  every  Church" — an  expansiveness  of  sympathy 
which  would  have  surprised  St.  Paul.  He  was  afflicted  by 
"  the  overflowings  of  infidelity,"  and  particularly  by  the  cir- 
culation of  "  a  large  edition  of  Paine's  Age  of  Reason,  printed 
by  some  who  professed  and  called  themselves  Christians,  for 
the  perversion  of  the  educated  and  inquiring  natives."  He 
consoled  himself,  however,  as  Lord  Macaulay  used  to  relate 
when  in  a  cheerful  mood,  with  all  the  luxuries  which  wealth 
could  command.  "  The  palace  was  completely  and  handsomely 
furnished,"  says  his  son-in-law,  with  an  emotion  worthy  of  the 
subject;  and  he  spent  four  thousand  five  hundred  pounds 
during  the  first  six  months  of  his  office — "  a  close  carriage 
with  Venetians,"  and  "  a  light  barouche,"  swelling  the  items 
of  the  upholsterer's  bill.*  He  did  not  convert  any  Hindoos, 
probably  because  they  never  heard  of  him. 

Before  we  conclude  our  particular  notice  of  the  Anglican 
Church  in  India,  the  final  results  of  whose  operations  will  be 
discussed  presently,  it  may  be  well  to  add  a  few  examples  of 
the  estimate  formed  of  her  character,  both  by  the  heathen  and 
her  own  members. 

Our  first  witness  is  a  Brahmin,  whose  description  of  that 
well-known  "  service"  which  has  been  said  to  resemble  "  a 
funeral  ceremony  over  a  defunct  religion,"  exhibits  the  impres- 
sion which  it  would  not  unnaturally  produce  on  the  mind  of 
an  acute  and  educated  heathen.  "  Curiosity  once  led  me  into 
one  of  these  churches,  where  a  young  man  dressed  in  white 
began  the  performance  of  the  ceremony.  Had  it  not  been  for 
the  carelessness  of  his  manner,  I  should  have  been  tempted  to 
believe  that  he  was  engaged  in  offering  prayers  to  the  Deity. 
....  The  ceremonies  of  the  day  were  concluded  by  an  elderly 
priest,  in  a  black  robe,  who  read,  in  a  languid  and  monotonous 
tone,  from  a  small  book  which  he  held  in  his  hand,  a  sort  of 
exhortation,  the  truths  contained  in  which  seemed  equally 
indifferent  to  himself  and  to  his  audience,  "f  The  Brahmin 
who  drew  this  picture  could  not  possibly  foresee  that  a  grave 
English  traveller  would  one  day  produce  an  exactly  similar 
one  of  "  the  fashionable  church  in  Calcutta."  Let  the  reader 
judge  whether  the  aspect  which  Anglicanism  presented  to  the 
Hindoo  in  1855  was  likely  to  attract  his  veneration. 

"  On  looking  round  the  church  I  was  astonished  to  find  that 
the  men  who  were  laboring  at  the  punkahs  were  the  only 


*  Life,  of  Daniel  Wilson,  &c.,  by  Rev.  Josiah  Bateman,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xii.,  pp 
317,  320,  325,  331  (1860). 
f  Hamilton's  Letters  of  a  Hindoo  Rajah,  vol  i.,  p.  91, 5th  edition. 


318  CHAPTER  III. 

natives  in  it!  After  the  glowing  accounts  I  had  read  in  Eng- 
land and  Ceylon  of  the  success  of  missionary  exertions  in  India, 
I  was  naturally  astonished  at  this,  and  looked  and  looked  again 
in  the  vain  hope  of  discovering  some  quarter  of  the  church  set 
apart  for  neophytes  and  proselytes.  No,  there  was  no  such 
thing."  He  then  describes  the  service,  and  finally  adds, 
"  Before  the  conclusion  of  the  sermon  the  church  reminded 
me  of  Hogarth's  picture  of  the  Sleeping '  Congregation ;  one 
striking  difference,  however,  there  was — in  Hogarth's  picture 
the  clerk,  at  least,  is  wide  awake ;  in  the  fashionable  Calcutta 
church  the  clerk  was  fast  asleep.  All  around  were  to  be  seen 
closed  eyes,  and  heads  leaning  back  as  softly  as  hard  rails  and 
wooden  ledges  would  permit ;  here  and  there  an  energetic 
snorer.  ...  It  was  truly  a  lamentable,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a 
strange  sight.  Altogether,  a  more  truly  melancholy  spectacle 
than  this  outrageous  burlesque  of  devotion  it  would  not  have 
been  easy  to  parallel  elsewhere.  To  judge  by  the  fashionable 
Calcutta  church,  religion  was  a  mere  ceremonial  mockery — an 
ingenious  contrivance  for  passing  away  one  day  in  the  week  in 
strange  contrast  with  the  others."* 

Another  respectable  English  writer  relates  his  experience  in 
these  words :  u  Were  it  not  for  the  necessity  which  exists  for 
the  presence  of  a  clergyman  for  the  performance  of  the  civil 
rites  ordained  by  the  canons  of  the  Church,  many  of  the 
chaplains  might  as  well  be  in  England  as  in  India."f 

"I  am  of  the  number  of  those,"  says  an  Indian  official  in 
1843,  "  who  were  opposed  to  the  commencement  of  the  new 
cathedral  in  India,  and  for  reasons  which  appear  to  me  insuper- 
able, that  out  of  the  six  churches  connected  with  the  established 
religion  at  present  in  Calcutta,  one  only,  the  old  one,  has  any 
thing  approaching  to  a  regular  and  full  congregation. "J  This 
was  thirty  years  after  they  had  tried  their  final  remedy  of 
introducing  "  bishops." 

Finally,  a  Protestant  missionary  makes  the  following  almost 
incredibie  report :  "  The  state  of  religion  is  very  low.  I 
attended  most  of  the  principal  Protestant  places  of  worship 
and  by  actual  enumeration  found  the  largest  audience  not  to 
exceed  two  hundred  and  fifty  persons.  Several  of  them  were 
not  more  than  one- third  that  number. "§ 

If  this  be,  as  it  has  been  from  the  first,  the  aspect  which  the 
English  religion  presents  to  the  Hindoos,  we  cannot  be  sur- 

*  Tropical  Sketches,  by  William  Knighton,  A.M.,  p.  196. 
f  Modern  India,  by  Henry  H.  Spry,  M.D.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  196. 
\  The  Stranger  in  India,  by  George  W.  Johnson,  Esq.,  Advocate  of  the 
Supreme  Court  at  Calcutta,  vol.  i.,  p.  297. 
§  Howard  Malcolm,  vol  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  35. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  319 

prised  to  learn,  as  we  shall  do  immediately,  that  the  latter 

greatly  prefer  their  own;  or  rather,  that  they  do  not  believe  the 
nglish  have  any  religion  at  all — an  opinion  which  we  shall 
find  to  be  universal  among  all  oriental  communities.  It  appears 
that  one  energetic  Englishman,  however,  became  himself  an 
object  of  worship  to  a  company  of  Shanars;  but  even  in  this 
extreme  case  they  still  contrived  to  manifest  their  critical  appre- 
ciation of  the  British  character,  since  "  the  offerings  presented 
at  his  tomb. were  spirits  and  cigars."*  On  the  other  hand,  they 
easily  discriminate,  like  the  heathen  all  over  the  world,  the  dif- 
ference between  Protestants  and  Catholics.  "  You  call  your- 
selves Christian,"  the  Hindoos  say,  as  we  have  already  heard  ; 
"  so  do  the  Roman  Catholics,  who  abound  in  India.  They  daily 
frequent  their  churches,  fast  and  pray,  and  do  many  penances ; 
the  English  alone  appear  unconcerned  about  an  event  of  the 
greatest  importance."  Mr.  Kaye  ventures  to  quote  these  strik- 
ing words  from  Mr.  Forbes,  and  adds  this  comment  upon  them  : 
"  The  natives  of  India  marvelled  whether  the  British  acknowl- 
edged any  God."f 

If  we  turn  to  the  volumes  published  by  Mr.  Forbes,  we  find 
that  experienced  writer  recording  this  instructive  fact:  "I  have 
been  asked  by  many  natives  of  India,  whether  we  really  believed 
the  truth  of  our  own  Scriptures  ?" — and  he  justifies  their  inquiry 
by  adding,  a  little  later,  that  it  was  impossible  to  deny  u  the 
fatal  tendency  to  infidelity  among  the  Europeans  in  India,  es- 
pecially the  younger  part  of  the  community. ":£  Mr.  Walpole 
also  admits,  and  appears  to  illustrate  by  his  own  example,  the 
instability  of  Protestant  opinions  in  pagan  lands,  when  he  says, 
u  Living  among  heathens,  insensibly  one  learns  to  forget  one's 
own  faith,  while  one  despises  theirs."§ 


OTHER   PROTESTANT   MISSIONS. 

We  would  willingly  omit  to  notice  in  detail  the  other  Prot- 
estant bodies  which  have  sent  emissaries  to  India,  but  there  are 
two  or  three  of  them  which-  must,  in  conclusion,  be  briefly  re- 
viewed,— and  especially  one,  both  because  its  operations  have 
been  on  a  larger  scale  than  those  of  others,  and  because  its 
agents  have  imprudently  indulged  in  more  vaunting  language. 
The  sect  of  the  Baptists  claims  to  have  outstripped  its  rivals  in 

*  Kaye's  Administration  of  the  E.  I.  G.,  p.  652. 
|  Christianity  in  India,  ch.  iv.,  p.  90. 

;  Oriental  Memoirs,  by  James  Forbes,  F.R.S.,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  82,  and 
oh.  xxxi.,  p.  185. 
§  The  Ansayrii,  &c.,  by  the  Hon  F.  Walpole,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  318. 


320  CHAPTER   III. 

success ;  we  are  obliged,  therefore,  to  inquire  in  what  that  suc- 
cess consists. 

The  principal  scene  of  the  Baptist  mission  appears  to  have 
been  Serampore,  where  they  erected  a  college,  and  endeavored 
to  act  on  the  native  mind  by  means  of  education.  "  Up  to 
1829,  no  less  a  sum  than  twenty-one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  thirty-eight  pounds  had  been  expended  on  the  college."* 
Apparently  tiiis  expenditure  had  not  been  too  accurately  pro- 
portioned to  the  means  at  their  disposal,  for  in  1837,  by  their 
own  account,  "  they  were  sinking  into  debt."f  But  all  their 
operations  were  of  the  same  ambitious  kind.  At  Calcutta  they 
had  a  printing  establishment  which  "  cost  upwards  of  twenty 
thousand  pounds.";):  It  was  from  these  two  places  that  they 
deluged  India  with  thousands  of  Bibles  and  tracts,  each  more 
wretchedly  mistranslated  than  its  predecessor;  for  although  Dr. 
Carey,  one  of  their  most  conspicuous  members,  received  a  salary 
of  eight  hundred  pounds  a  year,  "  not  as  a  missionary,  but 
merely  as  a  professor  of  Sanscrit  and  Bengali,"§  his  linguistic 
qualifications  appear  to  have  been  of  an  ambiguous  kind  ;  and 
wre  are  told  by  a  Protestant  missionary  that  after  many  years  of 
practice,  during  which  he  preached  to  the  Hindoos  whenever  he 
could  induce  them  to  listen  to  him,  he  made  the  mortifying 
discovery  "  that  he  was  not  understood  !"||  Another  writer 
furnishes  a  more  minute  account  of  his  labors,  and  one  which 
is  too  curious  to  be  omitted.  After  noticing  that  Carey  had  the 
courage  to  issue  translations  of  the  Bible  "  in  no  fewer  than 
thirty-live  languages,"  a  very  few  of  which  he  knew  imperfectly, 
and  the  rest  not  at  all,  Dr.  Brown  says :  "It  is  painful  to  think 
that  so  much  labor  and  expense  should  have  been  thrown  away 
nearly  in  vain.  Had  Dr.  Carey  produced  even  one  good  trans- 
lation, he  would  have  rendered  a  greater  service  to  the  cause 
of  missions  than  he  has  done  by  all  his  versions  put  together. 

His  versions  generally  are  now  given  up  as  of  no  great 

value."!" 

But  if  the  Baptists, — who,  according  to  their  own  account, 
were  rivalling  the  Apostles  in  their  labors  and  triumphs,  and 
who  were  constantly  sending  to  England  such  reports  as,  "  the 

*  India  and  Europe  Compared,  by  Lieut.-general  Briggs,  F.R.S.,  ch.  vi., 
.  167. 

f  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxiv.,  p.  231  ;  New  Series. 

|  Brown's  History  of  the  Prop,  of  Christianity,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  67. 

§  Apology  for  the  Christian  Missions  to  India,  by  Andrew  Fuller,  p.  43. 
"  Dr.  Bryce  received  a  civil  appointment,  objectionable  in  every  point  of  view." 
A  Voice  from  India,  by  Captain  J.  B.  Seely,  p.  102. 

H  Howard  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  p.  2G5. 

1  Hist,  of  Prop,  of  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  71.  Mr.  Weitbreclit  gives  nearly 
the  same  account  of  them.  Missions  in  Bengal,  ch.  v.,  p.  200. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  321 

Church  is  breaking  forth  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left,'' 
and  others  equally  veracious,* — failed  in  the  work  of  trans- 
lation, the  general  character  of  their  mission  seems  to  have 
been  on  a  par  with  their  literary  productions.  "  A  more  un- 
happy state  of  things  than  what  existed  in  the  mission  family 
at  Serampore,"  says  the  historian  of  Protestant  missions,  "  it  is 
not  easy  to  conceive;"  and  then  he  explains  that  they  were  all 
fighting  together,  and,  as  usual,  retorting  texts  of  Scripture. 
"Marshman,"  he  says,  was  "jealous  of  any  young  man  of 
talent,"  and  "  they  made  the  new  comers  uncomfortable,  with 
the  view  of  getting  rid  of  them,  and  making  them  willing  to  go 
elsewhere !"  They  were  always  quarrelling  about  money,  and 
their  historian  adds,  "We  do  not  know  a  more  melancholy 
chapter  in  the  history  of  missions  than  is  to  be  found  in  the 
various  pamphlets  connected  with  the  Serampore  controversy. "f 

The  Marshman  referred  to  in  this  account,  is  the  person 
whom  Rammohun  Roy  used  to  perplex,  by  asking  him  how  he 
would,  on  his  principles,  argue  with  a  Catholic, — a  task  to 
which  the  shrewd  Hindoo  seems  to  have  suspected  he  was 
hardly  equal.  And  he  had  some  reason  for  the  suspicion,  since 
he  was  personally  acquainted  with  the  misadventures  of  certain 
Baptist  preachers  in  India,  and  particularly  with  the  "  Rev. 
William  Adams,  missionary  at  Serampore,''  who,  as  Dr.  Wolff 
relates,  "entered  into  controversy  with  Rammohun  Roy,  and 
the  result  was,  that  he  was  overcome  by  his  arguments,  and  the 
poor  man  denied  his  God  and  Saviour,  and  is  now  a  most 
decided  infidel  and  scoffer  at  Divine  revelation."^;  He  might 
also  have  known  the  Rev.  Mr.  Thomas,  who,  after  a  somewhat 
agitated  career  in  England,  joined  the  Baptists  in  India,  where, 
as  they  reported  a  little  prematurely,  "  a  Divine  blessing 
crowned  his  efforts."§  He  himself,  however,  tejls  us :  "  Whilst 
I  was  destitute  of  support  for  myself  or  my  family,  one  of  my 
relations," — apparently  he  had  married  an  Indian  woman, — 
"  offered  to  save  me  from  perishing,  on  condition  of  my  bowing 
down  to  an  idol.  After  some  hesitation  1  complied,  but  I  am 
still  attached  to  the  Christian  religion."! 

And  now  a  word  about  their  so-called  converts.  We  can  only 
take  our  information  from  themselves,  or  other  Protestants  who 
knew  them.  "Their  converts,"  says  Mr.  Bowen,  "are  accused 
of  wallowing  in  every  crime  that  degrades  human  nature  ;r^f 

*  Periodical  Accounts  from  the  Serampore  Mission,  passim. 

f  Dr  Brown,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  63-65. 

j  Wolff's  Journal,  p.  44. 

§  Report  of  the  Committee  of  the  Baptist  Missionary  Society,  October  7,  1819. 

I  History  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  by  Rev.  T.  Smith,  vol.  i.,  p.  328. 

^[  Missionary  Incitement  and  Hindoo  Demoralization,  by  John  Bowen,  p.  27. 


322  CHAPTER   Til. 

and  we  shall  presently  hear  the  Baptists  admitting  that  the 
accusation  was  perfectly  just.  But  unfortunately  this  is  not 
all.  "In  their  correspondence,"  continues  Mr.  Bowen,  "it 
abundantly  appears  that  they  are  no  strangers  to  the  existence 
of  vicious  practices,  even  in  their  own  society.  The  crimes 
of  the  Hindoos  are  depicted  with  a  virulence  altogether  un- 
equalled, while  those  of  their  own  followers  are  softened  into 
4  imprudencies,  fallings  off,  irregularities,  and  unlovely  intima- 
cies.' These  are  the  terms  by  which  fornication  and  adultery 
are  noticed  if  the  parties  happen  to  be  the  brethren"* 

"The  converts  made  by  the  Baptist  mission,"  writes  another 
ardent  Protestant  a  few  years  later,  "  are  the  most  wretched 
creatures  imaginable.  Under  the  Baptist  system  all  is  dreary. 
The  convert  receives  the  word  only,  and  is  left  to  grope  his 
way  in  the  dark  over  obstacles  which  not  one  in  a  hundred 
surmounts."f  Rammohun  Roy, — whom  Colonel  Macdonald 
with  military  ardor  calls  "  another  Luther,"^:  and  the  Unita- 
rians claim  as  "  a  Hindoo  convert  to  the  Christian  faith," — 
says  of  the  same  class,  "  They  are  not  only  idle,  debauched 
reprobates,  but  gross  railers  against  the  truths  of  Christianity ; 
and  are  not  less  loud  in  accusing  the  missionaries  of  deluding 
them  by  false  promises,  than  the  former  are  in  stigmatizing 
their  own  proselytes  as  i  enemies  to  the  cross  of  Christ.'  "§ 

We  have  now  only  to  add,  in  the  last  place,  that  the  Baptists 
themselves  admitted  the  fact.  "  A  great  part  of  the  Christian 
converts,"  says  Rammohun  Roy,  petitioned  Dr.  Middleton  after 
this  manner.  They  complained  that  they  had  been  "  seduced 
by  Dr.  Carey  with  the  hope  of  support  and  protection,"  but 
that  after  having  "  become  objects  of  contempt  and  derision  to 
their  Hindoo  brethren,  they  experience  the  fallacy  of  those 
promises  by  which  they  were  deluded,"!  and  beg  his  interfer- 
ence. An  inquiry  was  instituted,  and  Dubois,  who  was  on  the 
spot,  relates  its  issue.  "  About  two  years  before  my  departure 
from  India,  the  Protestant  missionaries  of  Serampore  found 
themselves  obliged  to  expel  from  their  service  all  their  new 
converts,  whom  they  had  employed  in  their  printing  establish- 
ment, in  order  to  furnish  them  with  the  means  of  subsistence." 
Their  own  explanation  offered  to  Middleton  was  this:  "They 
had  been  forced  to  take  this  step,  because  these  wretches,  after 
being  made  Christians,  became  so  vicious  and  intemperate,  that, 

*  P.  34.  He  adds,  in  a  note,  that  "  these  milky  expressions  frequently  occur 
in  missionary  correspondence"  (1823). 

f  Fifteen  Years  in  India,  by  an  Officer  in  His  Majesty's  Service,  p.  363  (1823). 
i  The  Civilization  and  Instruction  of  the  Natives  of  India,  p.  24. 
^  Defence  of  the  Precepts  of  Jesus,  by  Rammohun  Koy,  p.  74. 
1  P.  76. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  323 

they  were  afraid  the  example  of  their  daily  scandals  would  ruin 
all  their  pagan  workmen"* 

In  1859,  that  we  may  trace  their  history  up  to  the  present 
hour,  we  have  once  more  a  specimen  of  Baptist  converts,  which 
may  remind  us  of  the  Anglican  neophytes  in  China.  Mr.  Lang 
relates  in  that  year  that  an  educated  native,  holding  a  govern- 
ment office,  assured  him  that  all  the  nominal  Protestants,  of 
whatever  sect,  "only  assume  Christianity  in  the  hope  of  tem- 
poral advantage  and  preferment,  arid  fling  aside  their  newly 
put  on  faith,  and  laugh  and  scoif  at  your  credulity  the  moment 
they  find  their  hope  frustrated.  I  could  give  you  at  least  a 
hundred  instances,  but  one  will  suffice.  Not  long  ago  a  Mus- 
sulman, named  Ally  Khan,  was  converted  by  Mr.  Jones,  a 
missionary  in  Calcutta,  and  shortly  after  his  conversion  obtained 
an  appointment,  with  a  salary  of  a  hundred  rupees  a  month,  in 
the  Baptist  Missionary  Society.  Here  he  contrived  to  embezzle 
sixteen  hundred  rupees,  for  which  offence  he  was  indicted  in 
the  Supreme  Court,  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  a  year's  im- 
prisonment in  the  Calcutta  jail.  On  hearing  the  sentence  he 
exclaimed :  'In  the  name  of  the  devil,  is  this  the  reward  of  re- 
nouncing my  religion  ?  Farewell,  Christianity  !  from  this  hour 
I  am  a  Moslem  again.'  "f 

Such  have  been  the  boasted  missionary  successes  of  the  Bap- 
tists. And  it  is  from  their  co-religionists  that  we  learn  the  facts 
which  they  themselves  long  attempted  to  conceal.  "  The  Bap- 
tist missionaries  of  Serampore,"  says  Rammohun  Roy  in  a  letter 
to  the  Rev.  H.  Wade,  "  always  give  a  flat  denial  to  any  one 
who  expresses  the  slightest  doubt  of  their  success,  but  the  Bap- 
tist missionaries  at  Calcutta  are  sincere  enough  to  acknowledge 
publicly,  that  after  a  painful  toil  of  six  years  the  number  of 
their  converts  does  not  exceed  four ;  while  the  Independents, 
whose  resources  far  exceed  those  of  the  Baptists,  acknowledge 
that  in  seven  years  they  have  only  made  one  proselyte."^:  "  In 
looking  back  on  the  Serampore  mission,"  says  Dr.  Brown,  in 
spite  of  his  Protestant  sympathies,  "  it  is  impossible  not  to  be 
struck  with  the  fact,  how  much  the  results  fell  short  of  the 
great  expectations  which  were  long  entertained  of  it.  Nearly 
every  department  has  proved  a  failure.  It  would  almost  seem 
as  if  God  had  inscribed  on  the  Serampore  mission, '  I  will  stain 
the  pride  of  all  glory.'  "§ 

Only  two  examples,  one  American,  the  other  German,  shall 
be  added.  Both  are  recorded  by  the  missionaries  themselves. 

*  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xix.,  p.  7G5. 
f  Wanderings  in  India,  by  John  Lang,  p.  224. 
\.  Quoted  in  the  Annales,  tome  iv.,  p.  194. 
§  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  75. 


324:  CHAPTER    III. 

In  1840,  at  Hubli,  in  the  Southern  Mahratta  country,  "hun- 
dreds and  thousands  declared  themselves  ready  to  become  Chris- 
tians, if  they  could  only  dwell  together  in  places  of  their  own." 
uSuch  an  invitation,"  continues  the  report,  "was  only  too  wel- 
come. So  the  missionaries  founded  two  establishments,  one  at 
Maladamudra  for  the  cultivators,  and  one  at  Bettigherri  for  the 
weavers."  Thus  far  there  was  only  motive  for  rejoicing.  "But 
alas  !  no  sooner  had  the  missionaries  settled  at  these  two  places, 
than  they  had  the  great  mortification  of  finding  out  that  the 
whole  of  the  movement  was  nothing  more  than  a  deep-laid 
fraudulent  plan  of  a  few  cunning  Hindu  rogues,  who,  in  this 
way,  tried  to  take  advantage  of  the  inexperience  of  the  mission- 
aries. For  as  soon  as  they  found  out  that  they  could  not  obtain 
their  real  objects,  they,  together  with  all  their  followers,  at  once 
broke  off  all  connection  with  the  missionaries,  and  left  the  lat- 
ter alone  in  their  newly-built  houses." 

In  1845,  the  Basle  Missionary  Society  commenced  a  mission 
in  the  Neilgherries.  It  was  opened,  they  relate,  by  "  Brother 
Weigle,"  reinforced  by  Brother  Biihter,  Brother  Moerike,  and 
Brother  Metz.  Being  "  received  with  great  indifference,"  they 
tried  the  effect  of  a  school,  and  paid  one  hundred  boys,  as  they 
frankly  avow,  "  ostensibly  for  working  in  the  garden  in  the 
afternoon,  but  in  reality  for  corning  to  school."  Their  next 
step  was  "  the  direct  preaching  of  the  glorious  Gospel,"  which 
was  so  far  successful,  that,  if  we  may  be  pardoned  for  repeating 
such  words,  "some  received  Jesus  into  their  Pantheon,  and 
called  upon  His  as  well  as  upon  other  names !"  And  this  they 
call  "success."  They  collected,  however,  as  we  might  have 
anticipated,  a  great  deal  of  money,  and  one  gentleman  seems  to 
have  left  them  all  his  property.  Meanwhile,  "there  were  several 
hopeful  cases,  but  no  real  conversion  or  baptism  took  place,"  so 
that  "  at  last  it  became  a  great  trial  of  faith  and  patience  to  preach 
to  the  same  well-known  and  apparently  hopeless  generation." 
At  the  end  of  1856,  their  hopes  revived,  for  "  we  were  strength- 
ened by  the  arrival  of  Brother  Kettle."  This  was  evidently  an 
auspicious  event,  and  from  that  moment  "  the  signs  of  the 
coming  day  were  unmistakable."  The  day,  however,  was 
hardly^  to  be  distinguished  from  the  night,  so  faint  was  the 
illumination  which  accompanied  it.  "  In  June,  1857,  one  man 
came  forward  and  expressed  a  wish  for  baptism,"  which  they 
gave  him,  and  probably  other  gifts  with  it.  "The  sensation 
created  among  the  hill-tribes  by  this  baptism,"  they  say,  as  if 
so  unexpected  an  event  justified  impressive  language,  u  was 
like  an  earthquake  that  shook  the  mountains  from  one  end  to 
the  other."  The  mountains,  however,  brought  forth  nothing, 
and  the  earthquake  quite  as  little,  and  their  official  narrative 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  325 

ends,  in  1858,  with  these  words:  "  Two  souls  have  been  given 
us !"  In  thirteen  years,  eminently  prosperous  in  temporal 
affairs,  the  spiritual  conquests  of  the  whole  company  of  Prot- 
estant missionaries  amounted  to  two  questionable  disciples,  of 
whose  subsequent  history  their  report  furnishes  no  account. 

Four  years  later,  in  1862,  they  were  visited  by  Mr.  Clements 
Markham,  who  scrutinized  their  work  with  lively  sympathy, 
but  only  to  report  once  more,  "They  have  schools,  and  labor 
amongst  the  Badagas,  but  as  yet  with  scarcely  any  success."* 


RESOURCES   AND   QUALIFICATIONS    OF   THE    MISSIONARIES. 

We  have  now  nearly  completed  our  general  review,  and  have 
only  to  state,  in  conclusion,  what  have  been  the  final  results, 
up  to  the  present  hour,  of  Protestant  missions  in  India,  including 
the  operations  of  all  the  various  sects,  as  they  are  revealed  to 
us  by  their  own  agents  and  friends.  The  testimony  is  copious, 
and  much  of  it  may  be  deemed  superfluous ;  but  in  demon- 
strating facts  which  so  many  passions  and  prejudices  conspire 
to  pervert  and  misrepresent,  it  is  expedient  rather  to  err  by 
excess  than  defect. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  earlier  part  of  this  chapter,  what  was 
accomplished  in  India  by  Catholic  missionaries,  and  what  was 
the  manner  of  their  life.  We  have  seen  also  some  features  of 
the  contrast  which  exists  between  them  and  the  Protestant 
emissaries,  both  in  personal  character  and  in  the  results  of  their 
labor.  Before  we  complete  that  contrast,  it  is  necessary  to 
notice  a  special  circumstance  which  constitutes  an  important 
preliminary  distinction  between  the  two  classes,  and  the  nature 
of  which  can  be  indicated  in  a  few  words. 

The  Catholic  missionaries,  as  we  have  seen,  had  to  contend, 
from  the  first  moment  of  their  arrival,  with  difficulties  and 
obstacles  which  can  only  be  compared  with  those  which  the  first 
Apostles  of  Christianity  encountered  and  overcame.  They  were 
not  masters  and  rulers  in  the  country  which  they  sought  to 
evangelize,  but  helpless  sojourners,  and  they  came  of  a  hated  and 
despised  race.  They  had  no  human  aids,  no  political  succor. 
During  the  latter  part  of  their  career  they  had  even  to  endure  the 
active  hostility  of  other  European  tribes,  who  seized  their  prop- 
erty or  converted  their  churches  to  profane  uses,  and  who  were 
known  by  the  natives  as  lords  and  conquerors.  It  was  only  by 
the  exercise  of  powers  belonging  to  the  supernatural  order  that 

*  Travels  in  Peru  and  India,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  372. 


326  CHAPTER  III. 

they  could  hope  to  prevail.  Yet  their  success  we  know  was 
complete.* 

The  English,  on  the  contrary,  have  enjoyed  every  human  ad- 
vantage which  in  such  an  enterprise  it  was  possible  to  possess. 
"The  prestige  of  the  British  name,"  says  a  Protestant  mis- 
sionary, "  attaches  itself  to  the  evangelist.  He  also  meets  with 
considerable  attention  and  regard  from  the  people,  as  being 
identified  with  the  rulers  of  their  country."f  "  In  our  Indian 
empire,"  observes  another  Protestant  writer,  "strong  Civil 
power  and  a  full  representation  of  the  constituent  functions  of 
our  episcopal  Church  combine  to  promote  and  propagate  the 
faith. "J  And  this  obvious  advantage  has  been  often  noticed. 
"England,"  says  an  American  writer,  "rules  by  her  laws  and 
arms  over  one  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  pagans,  and  by  her 
policy  and  influence  over  three  hundred  millions  more,  who  are 
all  accessible  by  Christian  effort.  As  the  result  of  all  this, 
Christianity  is  placed  in  the  most  favorable  position  for  making 
aggressions  upon  pagan  idolatry. "§  In  other  words,  England 
has  long  occupied  with  respect  to  India  a  more  favorable  posi- 
tion than  the  Church  held  towards  the  Roman  world  after 
three  centuries  <  f  bloody  persecution.  "  There  is  no  heathen 
country,"  Dr.  Corrie  used  to  say,  "where  a  missionary  can 
do  so  much  good,  with  so  little  personal  inconvenience."!  In 
truth  they  hardly  seem  to  encounter  opposition.  "All  who 
have  closely  watched  the  feelings  of  the  natives,"  they  confess, 
"  towards  the  missionaries  and  their  work,  know  well,  that 
their  prominent  characteristic  is  one  of  perfect  indifference."^ 
"  The  temptations  of  the  missionary  here,"  one  of  their  number 
confesses,  "  are  not  connected  with  hardships  and  self-denial ; 
the  liberal  allowance  of  the  society  and  the  state  of  the  country 
forbid  this."**  "  We  have  been  masters  of  the  whole  penin- 
sula," observes  a  recent  writer,  "and  our  missionaries  have 
enjoyed  many  advantages  which  of  necessity  arise  from  that 
circnmstance."ff 

But  this  is  not  all.  In  addition  to  the  facilities  derived  from 
their  connection  with  the  dominant  power,  and  the  motives  which 

*  "  Ubi  vis  naturalis  est  maxima,  effectus  autem  minimus,  et  ubi  vis  natura- 
lis  est  minima,  effectus  autem  niaximus,  ejusmodi  effectus  a  causa  seu  vi 
natural!  repeti  nulla  ratione  potest."  Perrone,  Prcelect.  Theolog.,  t.  1,  p.  344 ; 
Sterilitas  Protestantism*  in  suis  Missionibus  apud  Infideles. 

\  India  and  the  Gospel,  by  Rev.  William  Clarkson,  Lect.  iv.,  p.  165. 

\  Christian  Researches,  &c.,  by  Rev.  William  Jowett,  p.  356. 

§  Dr  Stephen  Olin,  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  347  (1853). 

|  Quoted  in  Abolition  of  Female  Infanticide  in  Ouzerat,  by  the  Rev.  John 
Cormack,  M.A.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  306. 

t  The  Indian  Mutiny,  Thoughts  and  Facts,  p.  26  (1857). 

**  Memoir  of  John  Adam,  late  Missionary  at  Calcutta,  p.  226. 

ff  The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste,  ch.  v.,  p.  119. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  327 

powerfully  influence  the  subject  natives  to  accept  the  instruc- 
tions of  their  masters  and  patrons,  we  must  reckon  the  vast 
material  resources  at  their  disposal.  To  build  churches,  to  found 
colleges  and  schools,  to  endow  orphanages,  to  recompense  cate- 
chists  and  teachers  with  ample  salaries,  and  to  attract  a  sordid 
and  impoverished  race  with  the  offer  of  assured  subsistence, — 
all  this  was  as  easy  to  Protestant  as  it  was  impossible  to  Catholic 
missionaries.  "Twenty -two  evangelical  societies,"  we  are  told, 
"  English,  American,  or  German, — (in  1859  they  had  increased 
to  twenty-five]. — supply  the  magnificent  annual  subsidy  of  one 
hundred  and  eighty -seven  thousand  pounds  sterling,"*  a  sum 
which  has  subsequently  attained  far  larger  proportions.  Twenty 
years  ago,  and  the  number  is  now  greatly  increased,  "  ninety 
chaplains  cost  the  Company  annually  eighty-eight  thousand 
pounds."f  We  have  seen  that  in  the  province  of  Madura  sixty- 
two  Catholic  missionaries  consumed  only  one  thousand  five 
hundred  pounds ;  so  that  each  Protestant  cost  exactly  forty 
times  as  much  as  each  Catholic  missionary.  The  mere  travelling 
expenses  of  Protestant  missionaries  already  amounted,  up  to 
1839,  to  two  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  pounds.:):  In  1851, 
the  cost  of  the  Anglican  establishment  alone  was  one  hundred 
and  twelve  thousand  pounds;  and  in  the  following  year,  a  Pres- 
byterian writer  boasted,  with  more  truth  than  prudence,  that  the 
yearly  expenditure  of  Protestant  missions  in  India  alone  was 
"  about  one-fifth  more  than  is  annually  raised  for  Papal  missions 
in  all  parts  of  the  world. '"§  In  1850,  the  government  expended 
on  the  Anglo-Indian  "  Established"  Church  one  hundred  and 
seven  thousand  eight  hundred  and  fifty-five  pounds,  though,  as 
Protestants  have  told  us,  her  clergy  "  might  as  well  be  in 
England  as  in  India,"  as  far  as  the  interests  of  the  natives  are 
concerned;  while  they  gave  to  the  Catholics  of  India  the  sum  of 
five  thousand  four  hundred  and  sixty-seven  pounds — or  twenty- 
four  pounds  less  than  they  bestowed  within  the  same  twelve- 
month upon  a  single  individual,  the  Protestant  Bishop  of  Cal- 
cutta.! Well  might  a  modern  Catholic  missionary,  struggling 
with  poverty  amid  thousands  of  Christians  as  poor  as  himself, 
exclaim,  "The  Protestants  .expend  immense  sums,  particularly 
in  the  South.  How  happy  shall  we  be  if,  on  our  side,  we  can 
add  to  the  flock  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  not  by  purchasing 


*  Les  Anglais  et  L'Inde,  par  E.  de  Valbezen,  ch.  iii.,  p.  162.  Mr.  Mullens 
says,  in  1854,  "  they  spend  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  a  year."  Missions  irt 
&  India,  introd.,  p.  iii.  Cf.,  India  in  1858,  by  Arthur  Mills,  Esq.,  M.P. 

•j-  Howard  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  p.  323. 

i  Ibid.,  p.  279. 

&  The  Darkness  and  the  Dawn  in  India,  by  John  Wilson,  D.D.,  F.R.S.,  p.  60 

|  Present  Position  of  Catholics  in  India,  by  the  liev.  W.  Strickland,  p.  6. 


328  CHAPTER   III. 

Christians,  but  by  establishing  schools,  employing  catechists, 
and  erecting  chapels  !"* 

If,  however,  there  is  so  great  a  disproportion  between  the 
material  resources  which  the  two  classes  respectively  command, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  contrast  between  the  personal  qual- 
ifications which  they  bring  to  their  task  is  not  less  conspicuous. 
Fleury  remarks,  in  his  Memoirs  on  the  Studies  necessary  for  the 
Eastern  Missions,  that  we  discern  "  in  the  Fathers,  and  espe- 
cially in  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  St.  Austin,  a  wonderful 
knowledge  of  the  poets,  historians,  and  other  heathen  writers, 
and  a  perfect  acquaintance  with  the  errors  which  they  wished  to 
combat."  We  have  seen  how  de'  Nobili,  de  Britto,  Beschi,  and 
others,  used  the  same  exact  knowledge  in  their  apostolic  con- 
flicts with  the  learned  Hindoos.  "An  instance  is  often  quoted," 
says  an  English  writer,  "  of  an  Indian  work  which  was  praised 
by  Voltaire,  as  containing  the  purest  doctrines  of  Christianity, 
and  which  was,  as  he  stated,  many  hundred  years  old.  It  has 
since  been  discovered  to  have  been  the  production  of  an  Italian 
missionary,  and  written  in  1621  !"f  Such  attainments,  how- 
ever, are  deemed  wholly  superfluous  by  Protestant  missionaries. 
So  entirely  void  are  even  the  Anglican  clergy,  who  are  probably 
a  higher  class  than  those  of  other  sects,  of  this  indispensable 
knowledge,  that  "  Bishop  Corrie  used  to  say,  that  it  was  a 
mercy  if  a  missionary  did  no  harm  in  his  first  year.":):  Dr.  Bu- 
chanan also  observes,  "  I  have  sometimes  been  ashamed  to  see 
the  Christian  missionary  put  to  silence  by  the  intelligent  Brah- 
min.'^ And  this  is  surely  not  surprising  when  we  consider  that 
the  feeble  arguments  of  the  missionaries  are  usually  employed 
in  defence  of  detestable  errors,  condemned  by  the  intuitional 
conscience  even  of  pagans.  How  should  the  Hindoo  not  despise 
a  religion  of  which  he  is  told,  by  the  highest  Anglican  author- 
ity in  India,  that  "  asceticism  is  no  part?"  "They  look  on  all 
human  existence,"  says  Moehler,  "  as  a  period  graciously  vouch- 
safed by  God  for  purification  and  purgation This  idea  is 

also  stamped  on  the  civil  life  of  the  Hindoo,  and  is  particularly 
perceptible  in  the  mutual  relations  of  the  several  castes."  And 
they  perceive  in  their  Protestant  teachers,  not  only  the  meanest 
intirmities  of  human  nature,  but  a  total  insensibility  to  primary 
truths  which  are  still  sacred  to  themselves,  and  which  consti- 
tute their  portion  of  those  primitive  traditions  which  time  has 
not  wholly  obliterated,  and  which  they  hold  in  common,  not 


*  Annals,  vol  i  ,  p.  178. 

\  Ancient  and  Modern  India,  by  W.  Cooke  Taylor,  LL.D.,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  515. 

\  Bengal  as  a  Meld  of  Missions^  by  M.  Wylie,  Esq.,  p.  25. 

§  A  Sermon,  by  the  Rev.  Claudius  Buchanan,  D.D.,  p.  21. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  329 

only  with  St.  Paul,  but  even  with  the  sages  of  heathen  an- 
tiquity.* 

"  1ST ot  unfrequently,"  says  a  candid  American  writer,  "  when 
the  young  missionary  is  preaching,  and  making,  as  he  supposes, 
his  triumphant  assaults  on  the  system  of  the  people,  is  the 
native  scholar  seen  to  throw  out  his  significant  glances,  indi- 
cating, what  he  will  sometimes  express  in  words,  '  the  young 
man  is  ignorant,  he  knows  nothing  about  us.'  "f  "  K~ot  one  of 
us,"  says  a  German  missionary  in  the  Nicobar  Islands,  "  ever 
learnt  the  Nicobar  language  so  perfectly  as  to  be  able  clearly  to 
explain  the  will  of  God  concerning  our  salvation  to  'the 
natives.":):  So  he  and  his  companions  employed  their  leisure 
time  in  collecting  shells  for  sale.  "  Never  will  conversion  be 
wrought  among  the  Hindoos,"  says  an  Indian  author,  "  by  the 
present  system  of  the  missionaries,  ignorant  of  their  philosophy, 
and  even  of  the  religion  they  would  combat.  "§  Lastly,  Mr.  Rus- 
sell makes,  in  1859,  the  following  judicious  remarks  :  "  So  long 
as  a  Christian  minister  can  argue  with  a  moulvie  or  pundit  with 
patience  and  ingenuity,  he  will  be  listened  to  with  interest  and 
respect;  he  will  be  permitted  to  expound  the  Scriptures,  and 
to  warn  his  hearers  against  the  errors  of  their  faith,  provided 
that  he  refrains  from  insulting,  contemptuous,  and  irritating 
language ;  but  if  he  be  a  mere  ignoran  tilliterate  zealot,  with- 
out any  qualification  (temporally  speaking)  except  a  knowledge 
of  Hindostanee  and  good  intentions,  he  may  be  exposed  to  the 
laughter,  scorn,  and  even  abuse  of  the  crowded  bazaar,  in  con- 
sequence of  his  manifest  inability  to  meet  the  subtle  objections 
of  his  keen  and  practised  opponent.  From  what  I  have  heard 
I  regret  to  state  my  conviction  is,  that  no  considerable  success, 
so  far  as  human  means  are  concerned,  can  be  expected  from 
the  efforts  of  those  who  are  like  the  ancient  Apostles  in  all  things 
but  their  inspiration  and  heavenly  help."||  And  the  heathen 
have  reasoned  exactly  like  Mr.  Russell.  "  If  Paul,  who  was 
undoubtedly  a  prophet,"  said  an  educated  Hindoo  to  Captain 
Seely,  "  made  no  effect  on  King  Agrippa,  how  am  I  to  be  per- 
suaded by  those  who  are  neither  saints  nor  prophets  f  "T 
If,  however,  the  Protestant  emissaries  in  India  had  all  been 

*  Yet  it  is  precisely  their  religious  practices  which  excite  the  ignorant  scorn 
of  their  English  teachers,  who  know  not  how  to  profit  by  them,  as  St.  Paul 
would  have  done,  to  introduce  the  evangelical  maxims  of  which  they  are  a 
corruption.  "  The  whole  year  round,"  is  the  shallow  comment  of  an  English 
Protestant,  "  is  nothing  but  one  succession  of  different  mysteries  and  mummery, 
in  honor  of  some  saint  or  of  some  holyday."  El  wood,  Narrative,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  229 

j  Journal  of  American  Oriental  Society,  vol.  ii.,  p.  150. 

\  Letters  on  the  Nicobar  Islands,  by  the  Rev.  C.  J.  Latrobe,  p.  65. 

§  Graham's  Letters  on  India,  p.  284. 

f  The  Times,  March  17,  1859. 

TT  The  Wonders  of  Mora,  ch.  xix.,  p.  469. 


330  CHAPTER   III. 

distinguished  by  learning  and  ability,  we  may  safely  infer, 
from  the  examples  of  Heber  and  Martyn,  that  their  failure 
would  have  been  equally  conspicuous.  How  great  that  failure 
has  been  we  are  now  to  hear  from  their  own  mouths,  or  from 
the  confessions  of  their  associates  and  friends. 


GENERAL   RESULTS    IN   THE   THKEE    PRESIDENCIES. 

Beginning  with  the  Bengal  Presidency,  and  with  the  year 
1809,  we  have  the  following  statement  by  an  ardent  supporter 
of  the  Anglican  establishment :  "  Although  there  have  been 
missionaries  in  India  for  above  a  hundred  years,  they  have  not 
made  any  converts  of  consequence,  nor  converted  as  many 
families  as  their  own  number  has  amounted  to"*  Thirteen 
years  later,  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Townley,  a  Protestant  mission- 
ary, k<  When  I  left  Bengal,  there  was  one  Hindoo,  concerning 

whom  the  missionaries  in  Calcutta  had  hopes and 

he  has  been  actually  baptized. "f  Three  years  after,  the  Cal- 
cutta Missionary  Society  still  report,  that  they  are  u  seriously 
and  painfully  impressed  with  the  little  success  which  has 
hitherto  attended  their  labors  among  the  heathen."  Exactly 
thirty  years  later,  in  1855,  Mr.  Campbell  declares  once  more — 
"  As  regards  the  great  provinces  of  Bengal  and  Hindostan,  no 
material  religious  impression  on  the  population  either  has  been 
made,  or  is  now  ~being  made"\  He  does  not,  of  course,  mean 
to  assert  that  there  were  no  nominal  converts,  for  of  them  we 
have  such  descriptions  as  the  following.  A  native  told  an 
American  traveller,  in  1858,  that  "  all  the  Khitrnutgras  in 
Calcutta  were  Christian.  I  was  surprised  to  hear  this,  and 
asked  him  to  what  Church  they  belonged.  '  Oh,  sir,'  he 
replied,  '  they  do  not  belong  to  any  Church,  but  they  will  all 
eat  pork  and  drink  brandy.'  "§  Such  was  the  popular  Hindoo 
notion  of  a  "  Christian."  And  that  it  was  a  perfectly  just  es- 
timate is  once  more  admitted,  in  1862,  by  Protestant  mission- 
aries of  all  denominations,  in  the  following  official  reports. 

We  will  begin  at  Calcutta,  and  hear  first  the  agents  of  the 
Church  Missionary  Society.  "  Calcutta,"  says  the  Kev.  James 
Vaughan,  uis,  and  has  been  for  years,  the  receptacle  of  the 
very  worst  Christians  of  the  Mofussil  stations.  It  is  a  regular 
cave  of  Adullam,  ....  many  of  them  being  more  depraved 


*  The  Dangers  of  British  India,  by  David  Hopkins,  H.E.I.C.S.,  p.  27. 

f  An  Answer  to  the  Abbe  Dubou,  by  Henry  Townley,  p.  109. 

1  India  as  it  may  lie,  ch.  viii.,  p.  395. 

§  From  New  York  to  Delhi,  by  .Robert  B.  Minturn,  Jun.,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  152. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  331 

even  than  the  heathen  around  them.  The  effect  of  all  this 
upon  the  heathen  need  not  be  told.  Of  course  these  poor 
people  are  known  by  all  to  be  Christians,  ....  and  the 
circumstance  of  their  being  baptized,  and  to  some  extent 
instructed  in  Christianity,  appears  to  have  rendered  them 
'  twice  dead.'1  "*  It  is  impossible  to  speak  more  plainly,  but 
Mr.  Vaughan  might  have  added,  that  all  these  "  reprobates," 
as  he  cafls  them,  who,  in  his  own  words,  "  have  never  been 
any  other  than  nominal  Christians,"  were  nevertheless  eagerly 
baptized  by  Protestant  missionaries,  and  represented  in  earlier 
reports  as  devout  disciples,  just  as  converts  of  precisely  the 
same  class  are  still  represented  in  later  ones. 

But  Calcutta  is  neither  the  only  nor  the  worst  example. 
From  every  part  of  Bengal  come  the  same  reports.  "  A  far 
heavier  discouragement,"  says  the  Church  Missionary  Society, 
u  was  experienced  at  the  &antipore  Training  Institution" 
Here  they  had  concentrated  their  resources,  and  collected  their 
most  promising  subjects;  and  this  was  the  result.  "A  dis- 
covery was  made  that  a  native  Christian  agent,  who  was  much 
trusted,  had  been  carrying  on  a  system  of  peculation  and 
immorality,  which  had  so  deeply  affected  the  discipline  and 
the  habits  of  the  students,"  that  there  was  no  alternative  but 
"  to  suspend  the  Institution,  and  to  send  home  the  students  to 
their  parents  and  friends."f 

Of  the  district  of  Kislmagurh,  once  represented  as  a  kind  of 
Protestant  Elysium,  the  same  Society  speaks  as  follows:  uThe 
reports  of  the  missionaries  speak  of  no  improvement  in  the 
Christian  condition  of  the  people  generally,  and  of  no  acces- 
sions from  the  heathen."  They  add,  that  the  moment  "  the 
gratuitous  feeding,  clothing,  and  boarding  of  their  children," 
by  which  alone  their  nominal  disciples  are  attracted,  is  discon- 
tinued, they  betray  their  true  character.  "  One  of  the  senior 
missionaries  gives  the  saying  of  one  of  his  people  as  only  a 
specimen  of  the  mercenary  spirit  which  had  pervaded  the  peo- 
ple— 4  If  the  Sahib  would  give  me  but  four  rupees  a  month,  I 
would  not  only  go  to  church  myself  regularly,  but  would  make 
all  the  people  of  the  village  go  too.'  "J  At  the  low  charge  of 
four  pounds  and  sixteen  shillings  per  annum,  he  was  willing 
to  profess  Protestantism  himself,  and  to  make  all  his  village 
profess  it  too.  Yet  these,  once  more,  are  the  very  men  whose 
"  con  version"  has  been  celebrated  with  loud  hosannas  in  every 
town,  and  almost  every  village,  of  England;  and  what  the 
missionaries  formerly  reported  of  Santipore  and  Kishnagurh, 

*  Church  Missionary  Society's  Report,  1861-1862,  p.  90. 
f  P.  100.  t  P.  101. 


332  CHAPTER  III. 

they  are  now  repeating,  with  the  certainty  of  the  same  issue,  of 
Tinnevelly  and  Travancore. 

The  Society  adds,  as  might  be  expected,  that  "  there  is  a 
brighter  prospect," — we  know  that  for  fifty  years  they  have 
thriven  on  prospects, — and  then,  having  suggested  this  familiar 
consolation,  proceeds  to  quote  the  confession  of  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Blumhardt,  that  his  converts  also  were  apt  to  "  turn  out  mere 
mercenary  hypocrites,"  and  that  he  could  only  "reiterate  his 
complaints  of  the  cold  and  lapsed  condition  of  the  mass  of  his 
native  Christians." 

From  Benares  the  Rev.  Mr.  Fuchs  writes  thus  :  "  Our  native 
Christians,  as  a  body,  in  their  every-day  life  and  practice,  are 
far  from  being  in  a  satisfactory  state.  The  number  of  native 
Christians  has  continued  stationary."*  If  the  missionaries 
have  any  respect  for  Christianity,  they  have  surely  reason  to 
rejoice  that  it  has  ceased  to  attract  such  professors. 

From  Gorruckpore  the  Rev.  Mr.  Reuther  reports  "  two  or 
three  great  evils."  The  first,  he  says,  with  remarkable  naivete, 
"  is  carelessness  with  regard  to  religion  !"  The  others  were 
only  habitual  drunkenness,  quarrelling,  "  and  abuse  among 
each  other."  "With  a  general  awakening,"  observes  Mr. 
Reuther,  "  we  have  not  been  blessed  ;"  and  then  he  adds, 
"We  would  go  on  opening  our  mouths  wide  till  the  Lord 
shall  be  pleased  to  fill  them."f  In  this  attitude  we  are  obliged 
to  leave  him. 

From  Agra  Mr. Schneider  writes,  "The  motives  for  embracing 
Christianity  were  chiefly  the  desire  to  find  employment,  and  to 
have  their  bodily  wants  provided  for.  ...  It  is  a  fact  that 
many  new  converts  have,  after  their  baptism,  not  adorned  their 
Christian  profession,  and  so  have  even  proved  great  oifences  and 
stumbling-blocks  to  the  cause  of  Christ."  In  other  words,  the 
sole  result  of  Protestant  missions,  and  we  shall  meet  the  same 
fac^t  in  every  other  land,  is  to  dispense  sacrilegious  baptisms, 
and  to  make  the  heathen  despise  Christianity  even  more  than 
they  hate  it.  Mr.  Schneider,  who  is  described  as  an  "  experi- 
enced missionary,"  so  thoroughly  appreciates  Hindoo  Anglicans, 
that  he  says,  u  I  have  almost  come  to  the  resolution  not  to 
baptize  an  inquirer  till  1  know  how  he  may  be  able  to  support 
himself  in  an  honest  way,  for  if  his  bodily  wants  cannot  be 
supplied,  he  will  only  he  a  burden  and  disgrace  to  tlw  Church.*^ 
It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  these  frank  confessions, 
which  contrast  so  notably  with  former  reports,  are  quite  a 
recent  phenomenon,  and  may  probably  be  attributed  to  the  in- 
convenient candor  of  lay  writers,  who  now  abound  in  India,  and 

*  P.  110.  f  P-  116-  |  P.  121. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  333 

whose  accounts  of  the  real  effect  of  Protestant  missions  suggest 
to  those  who  conduct  them  the  disagreeable  necessity  of  pru- 
dence and  reserve. 

From  Meerut  comes  the  usual  story,  with  the  addition  of  a 
report  by  Mr.  Haernle,  that  he  and  his  Anglican  colleagues,-— 
for  these  Germans  are  all,  at  least  nominally,  ministers  of  the 
Church  of  England, — had  been  fighting  with  "  the  Baptist 
mission  of  Delhi,"  an  episode  attended  with  "  evident  injury  to 
the  spiritual  growth  of  the  native  Christians."  The  turbulent 
Baptists,  he  complains,  "have  built  a  chapel  only  a  few  steps 
distant  from  our  own  !  The  progress  of  the  Lord's  work  has, 
by  this  violation  of  the  principle  of  mutual  amity  and  non- 
interference, been  greatly  hindered."*  Yet  these  gentlemen 
marvel  that  the  heathen  despises  a  religion,  which  is  to  him, 
as  to  others,  the  very  symbol  of  earthliness,  contention,  and 
disorder. 

Finally,  the  Rev.  William  Clarkson,  also  a  Protestant  mis- 
sionary, and  accustomed  to  exalt  the  value  of  his  own  labors, 
confesses,  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  bribes  and  other  attractions 
which  have  been  offered  to  the  Hindoo  during  a  whole  century, 
"  the  converts  from  among  European  and  East  Indian  society, 
have/ar  exceeded  those  which  have  been  granted  from  among 
the  heathen. "f 

Perhaps  we  have  now  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  Church  of 
England  missions  in  Bengal.  Let  us  hear  the  Baptists  in  their 
turn.  At  Delhi,  whence  they  made  their  raid  upon  the  Angli- 
cans at  Meerut,  this  is  their  report  for  1862  :  "  While  sixty-six 
persons  have  been  baptized,  seventy-five  have  been  excluded 
from  the  churches."  By  this  remarkable  process,  if  we  knew 
the  aggregate  of  their  disciples,  we  could  reckon  the  exact  hour 
at  which  Indian  Baptists  will  cease  to  exist.  But  "  the  com- 
mittee" hasten  to  offer  an  explanation  to  their  alarmed  sub- 
scribers: "The  missionaries  say  that  some,  unknown  to  them, 
had  never  entirely  renounced  their  old  heathen  habits,  while 
others  had  expected  to  benefit  in  their  temporal  circumstances." 
They  would  probably  have  resented  as  libellous  such  an  account 
of  their  neophytes,  if  it  had.  proceeded  from  any  but  their  own 
agents.  "  Being  disappointed,"  they  continue,  "  they  joined 
themselves  again  to  idols.  Such  defections  are  not  new  in  India, 
and  are  not  unexpected.  It  is  always  difficult  to  fathom  the 
motives  of  the  people,  and  to  determine  on  the  sincerity  of  the 
professions  they  make."  Having  satisfactorily  disposed  of  this 
point,  they  exclaim,  in  the  same  page,  "The  committee  are 

*  P.  127. 

f  India  and  the  Gospel,  by  the  Rev.  William  Clarkson,  Lect.  v.,  p.  220. 


334  CHAPTER   III. 

happy  to  report  that  in  this  great  country  the  work  of  evan- 
gelization goes  steadily  forward."* 

"  Of  the  important  institution  at  Serampore,  the  committee 
have  to  report  very  favorably."  This  institution  has  been  in 
existence  so  many  years,  and  has  cost  such  enormous  sums  of 
money,  that  they  might  well  hesitate  to  report  of  it  otherwise; 
yet  they  presently  reveal,  in  these  words,  its  real  character: 
"  Not  that  the  immediate  fruit  is  seen  in  the  conversion  of  souls. 
Of  this  the  instances  are  few."  And  then  they  quote  this  ad- 
mission from  the  tutors  and  professors  of  the  Serampore  college: 
"Of  late  years,  there  has  been  amongst  the  younger  educated 
Bengalees  a  great  diffusion  of  infidel  opinions,  and  some  of  our 
young  friends" — that  is,  their  pupils — "  boast  of  themselves  as 
belonging  to  the  school  of  intuitional  religion. "f  We  shall 
hear  further  evidence,  at  the  close  of  this  chapter,  of  the  real 
fruits  of  missionary  schools  in  every  part  of  India. 

Finally,  the  Baptist  committee  add,  without  the  least  inten- 
tion of  jesting  on  so  grave  a  subject,  "During  1861,  we  had 
no  addition  to  the  Church  by  baptism ;  but  at  the  close  of  the 
preceding  year  Mr.  Eobinson  had  the  pleasure  of  baptizing  two 
of  his  own  children." 

"  In  Agra,"  they  observe,  "we  still  have  to  deplore  an  almost 
universal  apathy,  and  indifference  to  the  truths  we  preach; 
numbers  will  listen  to  us,  but  very  few  appear  to  consider  the 
subject  worthy  of  further  inquiry."  And  then  they  give  this 
summary  :  "  During  the  past  year  we  have  had  several  painful 
cases  of  Church  discipline.  .  .  .  What  with  members  who  have 
left  the  station,  and  others  (including  paid  catechists)  who  have 
been  cut  off  for  immoral  conduct,  our  loss  has  been  heavy.":): 
Yet  they  assure  their  subscribers,  for  the  fiftieth  time,  that  their 
"prospects"  are  excellent,  that  "Christ's  kingdom  is  at  hand," 
which  they  prove  by  referring  to  "  Greek  literature"  and  "  the 
great  Neander" — and  that  the  best  thing  they  can  do  is  to 
continue  their  subscriptions  "  with  unflinching  courage,  and 
unfaltering  faith." 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  Wesleyans.  Of  their  disciples  "  in 
and  around  Bangalore,"  where  they  preach  "  about  forty  ser- 
mons a  week,"  this  is  their  account  in  1862:  "Although  they 
sometimes  seem  to  '  run  well,'  a  very  little  thing  4  hinders'  them. 
In  too  many  instances  they  manifest  spiritual  feebleness,  or 
religious  inconsistency."  It  is  probable  that  more  impartial 
observers  would  object  to  this  melodious  phraseology  as  some- 
what deficient  in  energy.  "  In  their  English  school,"  they  say, 

*  Seventieth  Report  of  the  Baptist  Missionary  Society,  1862,  p.  6. 
f  P.  22.  \  P.  35. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  335 

«r 

"  great  interest  has  been  manifested  in  the  Bible  lessons,"  but 
they  assist  us  to  appreciate  its  intensity  by  adding,  "  We  regret 
to  say  that  we  know  of  no  instance  in  which  the  truth  has  had 
a  saving  effect."* 

In  Mysore,  "  two  of  the  same  family  have  been  excluded  for 
quarrelsomeness  and  manifest  lack  of  c  desire  to  flee  from  the 
wrath  to  come.'  We  desire  to  see  a  work  among  them  of  which 
we  may  speak  more  confidently."  But  they  also  expect  future 
triumphs,  and  have  already  "  seasons  of  gracious  refreshing," 
which  afford  them  all  the  consolation  they  require. 

The  agents  of  the  London  Missionary  Society  are  as  emphatic 
as  all  the  others  in  asserting  their  success,  and  as  copious  in 

E roving  their  failure.  "The  general  aspect  of  the  mission  in 
ndia,"  they  say  with  a  prudent  suppression  of  particulars,  "  is 
highly  animating."  Their  pupils  also  "  are  made  familiar  with 
the  majesty,  and  rectitude,  and  mercy  of  Jehovah. "f  We  shall 
see  hereafter  what  their  pagan  scholars  really  are,  and  what 
they  think  about  the  "  rectitude  of  Jehovah." 

Let  us  turn  now  to  Madras.  In  1821  Mr.  Bowen  gave  the 
following  account :  "In  a  late  report  of  the  Madras  committee 
to  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  we  find  that '  twenty  heathens 
have  been  admitted  as  catechumens,  and  commenced  a  course 
of  preparatory  instruction.  Only  one  individual  of  the  whole 
number  has  abided  the  test.'  "J  Nearly  twenty  years  later,  in 
1839,  a  Protestant  missionary  writes  as  follows  of  Madras:  "As 
to  real  converts,  one  missionary  thought  there  were  but  two  or 
three  in  the  whole  city  and  suburbs ;  another  thought  there 
were  not  half  a  dozen,  at  the  utmost.  No  one  supposed  there 
were  more  than  that  number. "§  When  Mr.  Baber,  chief  judge 
of  the  Provincial  Court  of  Madras,  was  examined  before  a  com- 
mittee of  the  House  of  Lords,  he  said :  "  No  such  thing  is  known 
as  a  convert  by  any  of  our  English  missionaries."!  Still  later, 
in  1817,  "  the  natives  of  Madras  presented  a  petition  to  govern- 
ment, signed  by  more  than  twelve  thousand  of  the  Hindu  com- 
munity, expressing  bitter  animosity  against  the  missionaries.''^ 
Yet  an  Anglican  chaplain  declares  of  the  Madras  Presidency : 
"  It  may  be  emphatically  and  truly  designated  the  missionary 
diocese  of  India  !"** 
,  It  would  be  tedious  and  unprofitable  to  multiply  testimonies 

*  Report  of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  Missionary  Society,  1862,  p.  39. 
\  Report  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  1862,  p.  31. 
\  Missionary  Incitement,  &c.,  p.  10. 
§  Howard  Malcolm,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  59. 
\  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  iv.,  p.  316 ;  New  Series. 
"[[  India  and  the  Gospel,  Lect.  iv.,  p.  203. 

**  Sketch  of  the  Established  Church  in  India,  by  Edward  Whitehead,  M.A., 
Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  Madras,  ch.  vii.,  p.  100. 


336  CHAPTER   III. 

which  we  have  already  heard.  They  would  exactly  resemble 
those  which  have  been  cited  with  respect  to  Bengal. '  There  are 
the  usual  hollow  boasts,  and  the  us-ual  significant  confessions. 
Thus  the  Wesleyans  announce,  as  might  be  expected,  that 
Hindoo  Methodists  "  generally  appear  to  have  grown  in 
grace."  How  far  they  believe  their  own  idle  tales  is  shown  by 
later  admissions,  in  the  same  report,  of  the  "  feeble  piety"  and 
"inconsistent  conduct"  of  their  disciples.  All  the  sects  use 
the  same  phraseology,  and  all  their  agents  employ  the  same 
spasmodic  and  convulsive  style.  They  have  invariably,  for  the 
consolation  of  their  subscribers,  "  one  man,"  or  "  one  woman," 
who  is  an  exception  to  the  "  reprobates"  who  form  the  mass  of 
their  salaried  neophytes,  but  who  is  quite  sure  to  have  lapsed, 
long  before  their  next  report  appears,  into  the  same  condition 
as  the  rest.  Meanwhile,  Bible-texts  are  heaped  together,  pre- 
dictions of  future  success  fill  up  all  the  blank  spaces,  and  the 
narrative  always  closes  with  a  passionate  appeal  for  more  money. 
The  moral  condition  of  Hindoo  Protestants  is  a  dismal  subject 
of  contemplation,  but  that  of  most  of  their  teachers  is  hardly 
less  so. 

If,  finally,  we  turn  our  attention  to  Bombay,  the  report  of 
the  fourth  annual  meeting  of  the  Scottish  Missionary  Society 
contains  these  words:  "The  missionaries  cannot  as  yet  say  that 
any  actual  conversions  to  Christianity  have  been  made  by 
them."*  In  1838,  the  Kev.  J.  H.  Gray  writes :  "  I  can  say 
nothing  encouraging.  The  carelessness  and  apathy  of  the 
people,  and  their  great  ignorance  of  the  plainest  truths,  have 
often  compelled  rne  to  inquire  what  inducement  they  had  to  be- 
come Christians  ?"f  And  once  more,  the  present  k<  Bishop  of 
Bombay  assents  to  what  is  said  on  all  hands,  that  there  are  but 
few  native  Christians  of  undoubted  sincerity.":}:  "  It  is  quite 
clear  to  me,"  says  the  Rev.  A.  Davidson,  in  1862,  "  that  of 
those  who  professed  a  desire  of  baptism,  a  large  majority  were 
influenced  by  unworthy  motives."  Even  of  those  actually  ad- 
mitted he  confesses,  in  cautious  terms,  "  much  remains  that  we 
deplore ;"  and  he  adds  that  their  original  vices  "  we  seldom  see 
entirely  eradicated  from  the  adult."  This  refers  to  Aurung- 
abad,  while  of  Hyderabad  we  are  told,  "  Mr.  Burn  has  labored 
at  this  station  throughout  the  year;  he  cannot  report  the  acces- 
sion of  a  single  convert."§  Nor  can  we  be  surprised,  even  by 
such  confessions  as  these,  when  we  learn  what  examples  the 
natives  have  before  their  eyes  of  endless  confusion  and  schism 

*  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxiv.,  p.  197. 
f  Hist,  of  Prop,  of  Christianity.  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  333. 
I  Out  and  Home,  by  the  Rev.  II.  T upper,  p.  152. 
|  Report  of  Church  Missionary  Socitty,  pp.  81,  84. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  337 

among  their  Protestant  teachers.  Thus  of  the  Presbyterian 
sect  at  Bombay  we  are  told,  in  1852,  "The  Scotch  ecclesiasti- 
cal establishment  consists  of  two  churches,  now  unhappily 
opposed  to  each  other."*  And  again,  "  by  the  secession  in 
1843,  the  Church  of  Scotland  was  deprived  of  all  her  mis- 
sionaries in  India."f  And  this  event,  we  are  told  by  the  same 
writer,  was  celebrated  in  a  sermon  by  Dr.  Duff,  "  in  a  strain 
of  exaggeration  seldom  equalled  and  never  surpassed."  In 
presence  of  such  facts  we  have  no  reason  to  wonder  at  the 
acknowledged  results,  up  to  the  present  time,  of  all  the  Prot- 
estant missions  in  the  three  Presidencies  of  Bengal,  Madras, 
and  Bombay. 

RESULTS   IN   PARTICULAR   DISTRICTS. 

If  now  we  inquire  what  has  been  the  success  in  particular 
cities  arid  districts,  we  shall  find  it  to  be  everywhere  of  the 
same  character.  The  following  may  be  taken  as  examples. 

Of  Tranquebar,  after  so  many  years  of  lavish  expenditure, 
we  are  told  by  a  Protestant  clergyman,  that  "  in  1816  only 
three  missionaries  remained  in  connection  with  this  once 
flourishing  field,  and  two  of  these  were  supported  by  English 
funds.";);  Twenty-three  years  later  an  American  missionary 
adds,  "  There  is  now  almost  no  visible  effect  of  missionary 

labor  there the  mission  is  entirely  relinquished.  It  is 

the  opinion  of  some  of  the  best-informed  persons  in  that  region, 
that  many  of  our  missionaries  have  been  unconverted  men. 
If  such  be  the  fact,  the  wonder  ceases. "§ 

Of  Tanjore,  the  scene  of  the  labors  of  Schwartz,  we  have 
already  heard  from  one  Protestant  missionary  that  "  no  vital 
religion  is  found  in  any  of  the  native  Christians  ;"  and  from 
another,  that  "  a  Tanjore  Christian  has  become  a  by-word." 

Of  the  converts  of  Tinnevelly,  of  whom  even  the  Anglican 
clergy  have  imprudently  boasted,  the  historian  of  Protestant 
missions  thus  speaks:  "Though  most  of  them  could  not  be 
deemed  Christians,  and  but  a  small  proportion  of  them  were 
baptized,  yet  it  was  considered  as  something  that  they  had  for- 
saken their  idols."  And' again,  "As  whole  villages  came  for- 
ward asking  instruction,  so  whole  villages  also  fell  away/' 
And  once  more  :  "  Though  there  has  been  an  extensive  profes- 
sion of  Christianity  in  Tinnevelly,  and  a  considerable  outward 
improvement  of  the  people,"  thanks  to  English  money,  "  we 

*  Life  in  Bombay,  ch.  xii.,  p.  231  (1852). 

f  Missions  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  by  the  Rev.  James  Macfarlane,  p.  74. 

i  The  Land  of  the  Veda,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  426. 

§  Howard  Malcolm,  ch.  ii.,  p.  69. 

23 


338  CHAPTER   III. 

have  no  idea  that  there  has  been  much  spiritual  good  effected 
in  that  country."*  And  this  is  once  more  confirmed,  in  1858, 
by  the  joint  confession  of  all  the  principal  missionary  societies 
in  India,  Anglican,  Presbyterian,  Wesleyan,  and  Congrega- 
tional— English,  American,  and  German.  "  The  Tinnevelly 
brethren,"  says  their  collective  report  for  that  year,  "  are  fully 
alive  to  the  fact  that  Christianity  is  as  yet  only  in  an  infant 
state  in  Tinnevelly  ;"  while  even  of  the  nominal  converts  they 
add,  with  unusual  candor,  "  there  are  many  who  are  still  very 
ignorant,  and  but  barren  professors,  "f  Yet  for  several  years 
past  Tinnevelly  "  has  been  the  watchword  at  Anglican  mis- 
sionary meetings,  and  has  been  gravely  represented  as  the 
scene  of  unexampled  missionary  triumphs. "J 

Of  Benares,  a  Lutheran  writer  says,  "  the  work  takes  but 
little  root  here,  although  there  K?Q  fourteen  mission  schools.^ 

Of  Travancore,  after  boasting  of  earlier  conversions,  Mr. 
Clarkson  sorrowfully  confesses,  "  The  number  has  since  been 
reduced,  there  having  been  several  relapses."  || 

Of  the  reputed  conversions  at  Kisfinagurh^  a  native  Prot- 
estant minister  told  Mrs.  Colin  Mackenzie,  in  1853,  that  u  he 
attributed  the  exaggerated  accounts  to  the  necessity  of  creating 
a  sensation  at  home  at  public  meetings  in  order  to  raise  money ;" 
and  she  adds,  from  her  own  observation,  that  "  their  Christi- 
anity consists  in  nothing  but  renunciation  of  idols  .  .  .  one  did 
not  even  know  who  Jesus  was."^f 

Of  Central  India  generally,  an  experienced  Protestant  mis- 
sionary says,  "  I  have  met  with  native  Christians  who  have 
been  baptized,  some  on  the  eastern,  some  on  the  western  coast, 
and  others  at  more  southern  stations — lamentable  to  say,  they 
were  not  to  be  known  from  the  heathen  but  in  name!"** 

"  In  Western  India"  the  same  competent  witness  declares, 
"  conversions  have  been  scanty  .  .  .  for  more  than  two  hundred 
years  have  the  natives  of  Western  India  been  conversant  with 
Europeans,  but  hitherto  they  have  yielded  but  few  converts  to 

*  Hist,  of  Prop,  of  Christianity,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  345. 

\  Proceedings  of  the  South  India  Missionary  Conference,  p.  18  (Madras,  1858) 

\  The  Church  Missionary  Society  give,  in  1862,  this  amusing  account  of  the 
"  spiritual  agents"  employed  by  them  in  the  Tinnevelly  district :  "  Their  want 
of  conscientiousness  in  reference  to  getting  into  debt ;  their  occasional  ti- 
midity in  reference  to  speaking  the  exact  truth  ;  and,  in  some  cases,  their  too 
much  thought  about  their  salary,  .  .  .  these  are  defects  which,  to  speak  gen- 
erally, we  still  discover  in  them."  Report,  p.  152.  It  is  impossible  not  to 
admire  this  new  definition  of  lying  as  "  timidity  in  reference  to  speaking  the 
truth."  The  praises  lavished  on  these  "  spiritual  agents,"  in  the  same  report, 
appear  to  illustrate  this  kind  of  timidity. 

§  Travels  in  India,  by  Leopold  von  Orlich,  vol.  ii.,  p.  137. 

j  India  and  the  Gospel,  Lect.  v.,  p.  232. 

•[  Six  Years  in  India,  vol.  i..  ch.  ii.,  p.  75. 

**  India  and  the  Gospel,  Lect.  vi.,  p.  324. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  339 

Christ  ;"*  and  in  1862  the  Church  Missionary  Society  once  more 
lament,  in  their  official  report,  "  the  smallness  of  the  success 
hitherto  granted  to  the  mission. "f 

Of  Northern  India  Dr.  Hoffmeister,  who  accompanied  Prince 
Waldemar  of  Prussia  in  the  campaign  against  the  Sikhs,  says, 
"  Though  the  natives  come,  apparently  only  from  curiosity,  to  the 
church,  and  send  their  children  to  school,  not  one  of  them,  how- 
ever, has  been  baptized  as  yet."$  In  1862,  the  Baptists,  though 
not  the  least  boastful  of  the  sects,  add  once  more,  "  The  Gospel 
has  been  proclaimed  very  widely  around  us.  At  present  we  do 
not  see  the  fruit. "§  "  In  the  whole  of  Northern  India,'1  says 
Mr.  Montgomery  Martin,  in  1862,  "out  of  one  hundred  million 
people,  there  are  not  twenty  thousand  even  nominal  converts," 
while  there  are  two  hundred  and  twenty  Protestant  ministers.! 

Of  Southern  India,  the  chief  field  of  Protestant  effort,  a 
capable  Protestant  witness  thus  speaks,  in  1860  :  "  The  conclu- 
sion to  which  we  have  come  is  this — either  that  missionary 
operations  have  already  reached  and  passed  their  culminating 
point ;  or,  at  any  rate,  that  there  are  most  unmistakable  and 
undeniable  signs  that  under  the  present  system  of  operations 
they  will  advance  no  further,  but  will,  on  the  other  hand,  in  all 
probability,  retrograde,  and  that  speedily."  And  then  this 
writer  expresses  the  conviction,  that  u  Sawyerpooram  and  other 
places,  which  are  now  like  household  words  on  the  lips  of  per- 
sons interested  in  missionary  successes,  are  rapidly  sinking  to 
the  level  of  Tanjore  and  Trichinopoly."  Finally,  he  adds, 
"After  1846  the  onward  movement  of  Christianity  in  South 
India  seems  to  have  ceased.  The  harvest  was  passed,  the  sum- 
mer ended.r*f 

In  more  remote  provinces  the  facts  are  still  more  gloomy.  In 
Nepaul^  a  British  official  informs  ns,  not  a  single  convert  has 
ever  been  made  by  Protestants,  though  all  political  influences 
are  in  their  favor :  "  but  the  Eewar  families  have  embraced 
Christianity — Catholicism  is  their  form  of  Christianity."** 

Of  Scinde  we  are  told,  by  Mr.  Clarkson,  that  it  "  has  never 
been  trodden  by  the  foot  of  the  Christian  preacher ;"  while  of 

*  India  and  the  Gospel,  Lect.  v.;  p.  231. 

f  P.  67. 

i  Travels  in  Ceylon  and  Continental  India,  p.  474. 

^  Report,  p.  33. 

I  British  India,  ch.  v.,  p.  227. 

1J  Christian  Remembrancer,  July,  1860,  pp.  63-5.  In  1862,  a  Baptist  mis- 
sionary gives  this  ludicrous  report  of  his  operations  in  Southern  India :  "  I  have 
seen  deep  convictions  in  one  of  our  congregations,  and  anxiety  in  another,  and 
frequent  misgivings  in  others,  but  do  not  know  of  one  decided  case  of  conver- 
sion in  connection  with  our  congregation."  Report,  p.  43. 

**  Five  Tears  at  Nepaul,  by  Captain  Thomas  Smith,  Assist.  Political  Resi- 
dent, vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  143. 


340  CHAPTER   III. 

the  Punjab, — which,  the  same  writer  says,  in  1850,  "with  a  Eu- 
ropean climate  arid  fertile  country,  awaits  evangelistic  efforts," 
—we  have  the  following  account,  in  1854,  from  the  celebrated 
Major  Hodson,  in  a  letter  of  the  2d  of  January,  1854,  to  his 
father,  the  Archdeacon  of  Stafford  :  u  You  evidently  do  not  ap- 
preciate the  state  of  things  in  these  provinces.  There  are  but  two 
churches  in  the  Punjab  ;  and  there  will  be  an  electric  telegraph 
to  Peshawur  before  a  church  is  commenced  there,  though  the 
station  has  been  one  for  years.  In  the  first  season  a  large 
Roman  Catholic  chapel  was  built  there,  and  an  Italian  priest 
from  the  Propaganda  busy  in  his  vocation.  I  offered  Mr. 
Clarke,"  a  Protestant  chaplain,  "all  the  aid  in  my  power, 
though  I  told  him  candidly  that  I  thought  he  had  not  much 
chance  of  success  here.  A  large  sum  has  been  raised  at 
Peshawur  for  the  mission,  but  unfortunately  they  have  gone 
wild  with  theories  about  the  lost  tribes  and  fulfilment  of  proph- 
ecies respecting  the  Jews,  which  has  given  a  somewhat  vision- 
ary character  to  their  plans.  Mr.  C.  wanted  me  to  think  that 
these  Euzofzai  Pathans  were  Ben-Msrael,  and  asked  me  whether 
I  had  heard  them  call  themselves  so ;  and  he  was  aghast  when 
I  said  they  were  as  likely  to  talk  of  Ben  d'Israeli."*  It  may 
be  added,  in  confirmation  of  the  above  allusion  to  Peshawur, 
that  Captain  Hervey  complained  as  late  as  1850:  "At  many 
of  our  stations  there  is  not  such  a  building  even  as  a  church, 
while  the  Papists  invariably  have  some  place  of  worship  ;"f 
and  General  Parlby  notices  the  same  contrast  in  the  following 
year,  when  he  says,  "  The  Church  of  Rome  has  of  late  years 
wonderfully  extended  the  field  of  its  operations.  There  is 
scarcely  a  station  .  .  .  which  is  not  provided  with  its  chapel 
and  its  priests.''^ 

Colonel  Addison  speaks,  in  1858,  of  a  Mr.  Clarke,  who  was, 
perhaps,  the  gentleman  referred  to  by  Major  Hodson,  as  having 
"  gone  wild"  about  the  Ben-i-Israel.  He  was  sent  out  by  the 
"Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,"  and  Colonel 
Addison  gives  this  account  of  him  :  "  His  talents  were  of  the 
highest  order,  his  zeal  wrell  known ;  and  it  was  therefore  most 
sanguinely  expected  that  his  mission  would  be  crowned  with 
success.  After  several  ineffectual  attempts  to  convert  the 
natives,  poor  Clarke  returned  in  despair  to  Calcutta,  feeling 
more  than  half  inclined  to  start  for  Europe,  so  much  did  he 
take  his  repeated  failures  to  heart."§ 

Another  Mr.  Clark,  after  boasting,  in  1862,  of  soine  Punjabee 

*  Memoirs,  by  his  brother,  p.  144. 

f  Ten  Years  in  India,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  47. 

\  The  Establishment,  &c.,  p.  16. 

|  Traits  of  Anglo-Indian  Life,  by  Lieut.-col.  Addison,  p.  165  (1853). 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  341 

Christian  soldiers,  says :  "  They  are  but  weak  and  ignorant ; 
but  in  spite  of  falls  and  sins,  I  believe  they  are  improving.""* 
In  presence  of  such  language,  one  knows  not  which  to  admire 
most,  the  disciples  or  their  teachers. 

Hitherto  we  have  heard  evidence  only  with  respect  to  par- 
ticular cities;  let  us  now  introduce  the  witnesses  who  record 
their  experience  of  the  general  results  of  Protestant  missions 
throughout  India. 

'•  Christianity,"  says  one  who  was  long  the  associate  of  Prot- 
estant missionaries,  "  makes  little  or  no  progress.  1  used  to 
inquire  of  the  missionaries,  whenever  I  had  an  opportunity, 
how  many  Hindoos  or  Mahometans  they  had  converted  during 
the  time  of  their  mission,  and  in  general  the  answer  was  one, 
or  sometimes  none"\ 

"  A  person  who  has  sojourned  thirty  years  in  India,"  says 
M.  Peschier,  president  of  the  missionary  society  at  Geneva, 
"  preaching  to  unbelievers,  declares  to  us  that  he  has  not  been 
able  to  work  a  single  conversion. "J 

"  Whoever  has  seen  much  of  Hindoo  Christians,"  says  a  cel- 
ebrated writer,  "  must  have  perceived  that  the  man  who  bears 
that  name  is  very  commonly  nothing  more  than  a  drunken 
reprobate  who  conceives  himself  at  liberty  to  eat  or  drink  any 
thing  he  pleases."  And  he  adds,  that  the  custom  of  paying  such 
converts  was  so  universal,  that  u  the  slightest  success  in  Hin- 
dostan  would  eat  up  the  revenues  of  the  East  India  Cornpany."§ 

Mr.  C.  S.  John,  the  "Senior  of  the  Royal  Danish  mission  at 
Tranquebar,"  confirms  this  statement,  as  far  as  their  receiving 
"support  in  victuals  and  clothing."!  Mr.  Malcolm  Lewin 
tells  us,  in  1857,  that  "  an  inquiry  made  some  years  ago  at 
Bangalore, by  a  deputation  from  one  of  the  societies  in  England, 
resulted  in  the  discovery  that  the  converts  and  their  families 
were  nearly  all  of  them  stipendiaries  of  the  mission  ;"T  and 
another  writer  says  of  the  Baptist  converts:  "The  whole  of 
them  were  rescued  from  poverty,  and  procured  a  comfortable 
subsistence  ~by  their  conversion"** 

Mr.  Marsh  gave  to  the  House  of  Commons,  in  a  speech 
already  quoted,  the  following  description  of  Protestant  converts 
in  India  :  "They  are  drawn  from  the  Chandalahs,  or  Pariars,  or 
outcasts — a  portion  of  the  population  who  are  shut  out  from 
the  Hindoo  religion,  and  who,  being  condemned  to  the  lowest 

*  Church  Missionary  Report,  p.  136. 

f  Ida  Pfeiffer,  Voyage  Round  the  World,  p.  116. 

j:  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xix.,  p.  230. 

Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xii.,  p.  161. 

On  Indian  Civilization,  p.  3. 

The  Way  to  Lose  India,  p.  17  (1857). 
**  Observations  on  the  Present  State  of  the  E.  I.  Company,  p.  61. 


34:2  CHAPTER  III. 

poverty  and  the  most  sordid  occupations,  are  glad  to  procure, 
by  what  tho  missionaries  call  conversion,  whatever  pittance 
they  are  enabled  to  dole  out  for  their  subsistence."  He  added, 
that  all  classes  are  united  "in  one  common  sentiment  of  con 
tempt  for  the  Pariars,  amongst  whom  they  class  the  Christian 
missionary  and  his  convert,  the  pastor  and  his  disciple." 

Dr.  Bryce,  a  Presbyterian  minister,  declared,  in  a  sermon 
preached  by  him  at  Calcutta,  "  Alas !  it  may  be  doubted  if  at 
this  day  the  Christian  missionary  boasts  a  single  proselyte  to 
his  creed  over  whom  he  is  warranted  to  rejoice;"  and  another 
witness  remarks  upon  his  words,  "this  is  the  opinion  of  a 
learned  and  pious  clergyman,  delivered  to  a  congregation  who 
possessed  ample  means  of  ascertaining  its  correctness."* 

"The  outcasts  have  indeed  joined  the  missionaries,"  says  a 
British  official,  "and  have  appeared  as  of  their  faith;  but  the 
conduct  of  these  outcasts  has  generally  proved  that  they  pro- 
fessed what  they  did  not  feel,  and  has  considerably  influenced 
the  higher  orders  in  their  prejudices  against  Christianity ."f 

"  The  missionaries  long  since  stated,"  says  Mr.  Bowen,  "  that 
'  their  anxiety  to  obtain  converts  seemed  to  be  changed  into 
anxiety  about  those  who  were  obtained.'  "^ 

"  The  greater  number,"  we  are  told  by  Rammohun  Roy, 
who  professed  to  be  a  Christian,  but  denied  the  Incarnation, 
under  the  influence  of  Protestant  neology,  "  have  been  allured 
to  change  their  faith  by  other  attractions  than  by  a  conviction 
of  the  truth  and  reasonableness  of  the  doctrine,  as  we  find 
nearly  all  of  them  are  employed  or  fed  by  their  spiritual  teachers, 
and  in  case  of  neglect  are  apt  to  manifest  a  rebellious  spirit."§ 

'•  In  some  places,"  says  the  Rev.  Howard  Malcolm,  in  1839, 
"  numerous  individuals  have  openly  renounced  caste,  and 
become  nominal  Christians,  but  without  indicating  or  professing 
change  of  heart." || 

Captain  Seely  heard  a  Sepoy,  who  had  been  flogged  and 
drummed  out  of  his  corps  for  theft,  answer  to  the  reproach 
"  You  have  lost  your  caste,"  by  these  words;  "  Have  I  \  then  1 
can  always  turn  Christian.^  And  this  motive  for  professing 
what  is  called  "Christianity"  is  further  illustrated  by  a  writer  in 
1853,  who  tells  us,  "  A  man  stopped  Mr.  Janvier,"  a  Protestant 
missionary,  "in  the  bazaar  at  Loodiana,  saying  he  was  willing 
to  be  a  Christian,  and  wishing  to  know  how  much  he  would 

*  Missionary  Incitement,  &c.,  p.  71. 

f  T'ie  Dangers  of  British  India,  by  David  Hopkins,  of  the  E.  I.  C.  Bengal 
Medical  Establishment,  p.  27. 

|  Missionary  Incitement,  &c.,  p.  66. 

Defence  of  the  Precepts  of  Jesus,  p.  20. 

Travels  in  S.  Eastern  Asia,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  43. 

The  Wonders  of  Mora,  ch.  xix.,  p.  476. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  343 

give?  Another  came  to  one  of  our  missionaries,  and  said,  they 
dressed  so  cleanly,  and  fed  so  well,  that  he  would  like  to  be  a 
Christian."* 

Nor,  as  we  advance  towards  the  present  hour,  do  we  lind 
the  least  variation  in  the  evidence.  "Most  of  the  people  form- 
ing the  congregation,"  says  Dr.  Brown,  "  are  Christians  only 
in  name."f  "  The  influence  of  the  English  missions,"  says 
Count  de  Warren  in  1843,  "is  an  absolute  nullity;  they  reckon 
no  other  proselytes  than  orphans  whom  the  missionaries  pur- 
chase, and  who,  when  they  grow  up,  all  return  to  the  religion 
of  their  countrymen.  It  must  be  confessed  too  that  the  follow- 
ers of  Christ  scarcely  manifest  more  charity  or  more  humility 
than  those  of  Brahma  or  Mahomet."^ 

In  1844,  Mr.  Wilkinson,  a  Protestant  missionary,  noticing 
the  inconvenience  of  the  multiplicity  of  Christian  sects,  and  the 
fact  that  they  only  win  their  disciples  at  each  other's  expense, 
relates,  that  "  when  the  offender  finds  that  his  crime  has  been 
detected,  rather  than  be  openly  reproved,  he  generally  goes 
over  to  some  of  the  different  communities  of  Christians,  in  hopes 
of  a  reception. "§  And  each  sect  counts  him  again  as  a  new 
convert,  and  makes  his  "  conversion"  the  ground  of  an  appeal 
to  the  English  public  for  fresh  subscriptions. 

In  1850,  General  Briggs  notices,  that  of  the  whole  number 
of  nominal  converts  throughout  all  the  provinces  of  India,  even 
the  missionaries  themselves  reckon  less  than  one-sixth  as 
"church  members  ;"||  and  in  the  same  year,  Mr.  Ward,  a 
Protestant  missionary,  confesses  that  "  the  whole  number  of 
converts  to  Christianity,"  in  any  sense  whatever,  is  not  one- 
tenth  of  that  claimed  in  missionary  reports.^  While  even  of 
these  Captain  Hervey  says:  "The  converts  become  worse  than 

they  were  before the  worst  characters  in  our  regiments 

are  Christians."  And  then  he  adds  a  fact,  of  which  the  im- 
portance consists  in  this,  that  it  reveals  the  secret  opinion  of 
the  whole  English  population  of  India  as  to  the  true  character  of 
Protestant "  converts."  "Whenever  a  native,"  he  says,  "presents 
himself  for  employment  as  a  servant,"  if  he  professes  to  be  a 
Christian,  "  he  is  not  taken,  because  all  Christians,  with  but 
few  exceptions,  are  looked  upon  as  great  vagabonds," — that  is, 
in  his  own  words,  "  as  rascal,  drunkards,  thieves,  and  repro- 

*  Six  Years  in  India,,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  78. 
f  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity^  vol.  ii.,  p.  250. 
\.  L'lnde  Anglaise,  tome  iii.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  229. 

§  Sketches  of  Christianity  in  N.  India,  by  the  Rev.  M.  Wilkinson,  p.  304. 
||  India  and  Europe  Compared,  ch.  vi.,  p.  173. 

T[  India  and  the  Hindoos,  by  F.  de  W.  Ward,  late  Missionary  at  Madras, 
ch.  xxii.,  p.  337. 


344  CHAPTER  III. 

bates."*  And  this  is  so  notorious,  that  the  Eev.  William 
Clarkson  affirms,  in  the  same  year,  after  long-  experience, — 
"  It  seems  as  though  calls  had  been  reiterated  till  they  had  be- 
come powerless  ;  but  as  yet  no  issue  ! Every  gate  seems 

to  have  been  shut,  every  channel  dammed  up,  by  which  Gos- 
pel streams  might  force  their  way."f 

In  1851,  Mr.  Mackenna  observes,  "the  numerous  missionaries, 
although  they  waste  years,  and  words,  and  even  money,  have 
converted  very  few  ;  yet  when  they  have  induced  one  or  two 
apparently  to  adopt  their  particular  tenets,  it  is  their  fashion  to 
make  a  clamor  in  the  newspapers  and  by  pamphlets,  although 
too  frequently  they  are  not  secure  of  their  new  converts  for  any 
length  of  time."J 

In  1852,  Mr.  Campbell  says :  "  It  must  be  admitted  that  the 
attempt  to  Christianize  the  natives  has  entirely  failed.  We 
have  made  some  infidels,  but  very  few  sincere  Christians,  and 
are  not  likely  on  the  present  system  to  make  many  more."§ 

In  1853 — for  we  must  pursue  the  narrative  to  the  end — 
Baron  Eric  von  Schonberg  writes  thus :  "  Missionaries  announ- 
cing the  conversion  of  a  solitary  Hindoo  among  thousands  of  un- 
believers, are  themselves  frequently  members  of  some  straggling 
sect,  and  too  often  the  instruments  of  fanatical  bigotry."! 

"They  exhibit  the  signs  of  conversion,"  says  Mr.  Irving  in 
the  same  year,  "  more  often  by  eating  beef  and  by  intoxication 
than  by  excellence  of  character.  They  consequently  find  a  dif- 
ficulty in  obtaining  employment  even  from  the  English,  and 
either  from  their  necessities  or  inclination  are  to  be  seen,  with 
a  Bible  in  one  hand,  and  a  petition  in  the  other,  wandering 

through  the  country,  soliciting  the  alms  of  Europeans 

Their  irregularities  and  lax  morality  have,  on  many  occasions, 
shocked  the  feelings  of  even  their  heathen  countrymen."  And 
then  he  notices,  in  order  to  expose,  an  immoral  and  mercenary 
fiction,  "  the  convert,  such  as  he  figures  in  the  pages  of  mis- 
sionary pamphlets — at  first  a  heathen,  foul  with  every  crime; 
and  then  a  Christian,  redolent  with  every  virtue."!" 

In  1856,  Mr.  Walter  Gibson  quotes  this  private  confession  of 
an  American  missionary  made  to  himself:  "The  millions  and 
hundreds  of  millions  in  the  East  pass  away,  uninfluenced  to  the 
slightest  extent  by  European  dominion  and  enlightenment."** 

*  Ten  Tears  in  India,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  105. 
f  Lecture  \j.,  p.  221. 

\  Ancient  and  Modern  India,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  516. 
|  Modern  India,  p.  208. 

I  Travels  in  India  and  Kashmir,  by  Baron  Eric  von  Sclionberg,  p.  195. 
1   The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste,  p.  146. 
**  The  Prison  of  Weteweden,  &c.,  p.  399. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  345 

In  1857,  M.  de  Valbezen,  who  appears  to  affect  in  religion 
the  cold  impartiality  which  some  Frenchmen  mistake  for  great- 
ness of  inind,  says  :  "  The  preaching  of  the  Protestant  mission- 
aries has  not  produced  the  least  impression  ;"  and  then  he  adds 
that  if  any  change  occurred  in  the  government  of  India,  "  there 
are  very  few  indeed  of  their  converts  who  would  not  relapse 
into  the  gross  errors  of  their  native  religions."*  "  It  has  been 
justly  observed,"  says  an  ardent  English  Protestant,  in  confir- 
mation of  this  statement,  "  that  if  we  were  driven  out  of  the 
country  to-morrow,  few  vestiges  would  remain  at  those  places 
where  the  English  have  settled  as  evidence  of  their  ever  hav- 
ing been  under  Christian  rule."f 

In  1858,  we  have  the  following  testimonies  :  "  The  converts," 
says  Mr.  Minturn,  "  are  few,  and  mostly  of  the  most  degraded 
classes.":):  "  The  native  converts  to  Christianity,"  writes  Mr. 
Malcolm  Ludlow  at  the  same  moment,  "  I  have  not  even  num- 
bered amongst  the  distinctively  Christian  elements,  so  unin- 
fiuential  are  they  for  the  most  part"§  And  Sir  James  Brooke 
sums  up  the  whole  history  when  he  tells  the  missionary  so- 
cieties of  England,  "  with  the  Mahomedan  you  have  made  no 
progress  ;  with  the  Hindoo  you  have  made  no  progress  at  all ; 
you  are  just  where  you  were  the  very  first  day  you  went  to 
India,  "\ 

In  1859,  Captain  Evans  Bell  says  once  more:  "I  doubt 
whether  the  missionaries  will  ever  do  any  good  ;"T  and  Mr. 
Ludlow  adds,  "we  have  to  take  account  of  the  growing  dis- 
trust of,  and  dislike  to  Christianity,  on  the  part  of  borh  Hindoo 
and  Moslem."**  In  the  same  year,  the  ilev.  Edward  Stor- 
row,  who  candidly  rejects  more  than  four-fifths  of  all  the 
nominal  converts  claimed  by  Protestantism,  says  of  the  rest, 
"  the  general  character  of  native  Christians,  it  need  hardly  be 
said,  is  not  of  a  high  order."ff 

In  1860,  Mr.  Russell  continues  the  record  by  the  grave  an- 
nouncement, that  "  in  despair,  many  Christians  in  India  are 
driven  to  wish  and  pray  that  some  one  or  some  way  may  arise 
for  converting  the  Indians  by  the  sword."  JJ  And  lastly,  in  1862, 
an  Anglican  chaplain  confirms  all  former  witnesses,  and  flatly 

*  Les  Anglais  et  I'lnde,  ch.  iii.,  p.  164. 

f  Narrative  of  a  Journey  to  India,  by  Mrs.  Colonel  Elwood  •  vol.  ii.,  Letter 
liv.,  p.  109. 

\  From  New  York  to  Delhi,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  179. 
§  British  India,  vol.  i.,  p.  102. 

f  Speech  at  Liverpool ;  The  Times,  September  29, 1858. 
*|"  The  English  in  India,  p.  185. 

**  Thoughts  on  the  Policy  of  the  Grown  towards  India,  Letter  xvi.,  p.  214. 
ft  India  and  Christian  Missions,  ch.  iv.,  pp.  73,  79. 
|j  Diary  in  India,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  150. 


34:6  CHAPTER   III. 

closes  the  series  by  frankly  recommending  his  co-religionists  to 
give  up  India  altogether^  and  try  their  fortunes  in  China.  The 
former  country,  he  says,  "  like  its  own  sands,  has  drunk  up  so 
much  of  our  missionary  labor,  and  like  them  has  yielded  so 
little."* 

Such,  by  their  own  confession,  have  been  the  results  of  all 
the  missionary  efforts  of  twenty-two  Protestant  missionary  so- 
cieties in  India,  employing  nearly  one  thousand  agents,  com- 
manding unlimited  temporal  resources,  arid  assisted  by  a  com- 
bination of  every  human  advantage  which  could  facilitate  the* 
prosecution  of  such  a  work.  Once  more  they  confess  that  they 
have  failed.  "  It  is  enough,"  says  a  leading  organ  of  Angli- 
canism, in  1860,  "  to  break  the  heart  of  any  one  who  ever  hoped 
to  see  India  evangelized  by  means  of  the  English  Church. "f 
Perhaps  such  a  history  might  have  suggested  something  more 
than  barren  lamentations,  especially  to  men  who  coulcl  thus 
describe  all  its  phases.  "  It  makes  the  heart  ache  to  read  the 
history  of  Protestant  missions  in  India  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years.  Over  and  over  again,  at  Tranquebar,  at  Trichinopoly, 
at  Vellore,  at  Tanjore,  and  a  hundred  other  places,  we  meet 
almost  invariably  the  same  melancholy  story.  The  Gospel  is 
preached  by  holy  and  devoted  men,  like  Schwartz,  and  Kohloff, 
and  Ziegenbalg" — not  one  of  whom  believed  in  Anglicanism, 
though  this  writer  is  obliged  to  name  Lutherans  and  Calvinists 
in  default  of  others — "  for  a  little  while  all  seems  to  flourish  ; 
then  comes,  first  a  period  when  no  further  advance  is  made, 
then  deeper  stagnation,  the  death  of  the  old  foreign  pastors,  then 
a  grievous  decline,  and  last  the  complete  extinguishing  of  the 
native  Church  in  that  particular  spot,  or  else  its  sinking  into  tor- 
pidity resembling  a  state  of  living  death,  and  the  removal  of  its 
candlestick  out  of  its  place.":}:  It  is  a  Protestant  who  narrates 
with  so  much  accuracy  the  failure  of  Protestant  missions  in  India, 
and  who  seems  to  have  suspected,  at  least  for  a  moment,  its  true 
explanation :  u  Is  not  the  truth  this,"  he  asks,  though  apparent- 
ly without  pausing  to  answer  his  own  question,  "  that  the  Angli- 
can Church  has  forgotten  to  work  after  the  apostolic  model  ?"§ 

Once  more  we  have  traced  a  contrast.     In  China,  an  English 

*  How  we  got  to  Pekin,  by  the  Rev.  R.  J.  L.  M'Ghee,  Chaplain  to  the  Forces, 
ch.  xiii.,  p.  291. 

f  Christian  Remembrancer,  July,  1860. 

|  Ibid.,  October,  1859,  p.  377. 

§  It  is  shocking  to  find  an  Anglican  missionary  using  such  language  as  the 
following.  The  Rev.  H.  Baker,  in  an  address  as  remarkable  for  intellectual 
feebleness  as  for  moral  insensibility,  tells  the  world,  "  We  would  humbly  hope 
that  our  infant  Churches  are  not  far  behind  those  established  by  the  Apostles 
themselves,  at  Corinth,  Ephesus,  or  Colosse."  Proceedings  of  the  South  India 
Missionary  Conference,  p.  296. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  347 

writer  has  proclaimed  what  he  calls  "  the  unwelcome  truth," 
that  it  is  only  the  Catholic  missionaries  who  succeed,  while 
Protestantism  "  does  not  find  acceptance"  with  its  people.  In 
India,  as  a  writer  quoted  by  Mr.  Mill  in  his  well-known  history 
affirms,  "  the  Protestant  form  of  worship  is  little  adapted  to 
the  narrow  and  contracted  ideas  of  the  Hindoos," — though  it  is 
notorious  that  the  Hindoo  has  a  more  logical  and  subtle  mind 
than  any  pagan  race  now  existing,  and  that  he  constantly  con- 
founds the  Protestant  missionary  in  the  discussions  which  the 
latter  sometimes  provokes,  but  always  to  his  own  disadvantage. 
"The  Koman  Catholic,"  adds  the  same  writer,  "lias  certainly 
been  more  successful  in  calling  these  deluded  children  to  its 
bosom. "*  We  shall  find  the  same  singular  language  employed, 
to  explain  this  perpetually  recurring  fact,  in  many  other  lands. 
Yet  as  an  experienced  witness  remarks,  "even  the  poor  Hindoos 
are  as  astute  naturally  as  if  educated  ;"f  and  a  Protestant 
missionary,  who  observes  that  they  are  "  excessively  fond  of 
metaphysical  discussion,"  confesses  that  while  "  the  Pundits  of 
India  are  undoubtedly  the  most  intellectually  cultivated  and 
morally  responsible  class  in  the  community,"  they  are  also  "  by 
far  the  most  unimpressible."^:  It  is  not,  then,  by  want  of 
capacity  in  the  Hindoo  race  that  the  failure  of  Protestantism 
can  be  explained  ;  and  moreover,  if  Protestantism  were  the  true 
form  of  Christianity,  it  would  be  "  adapted"  to  the  wants  of  all 
mankind.  "For  the  word  of  God,"  as  the  great  Apostle 
declares,  "  is  living  and  effectual,  and  more  piercing  than  any 
two-edged  sword. "§  It  is  the  word  of  man  which  is  feeble  and 
ineffective,  and  "  little  adapted"  to  prevail  against  the  super- 
stitions of  Hindoo  or  Chinese.  We  shall  see,  in  the  course  of 
these  pages,  that  "  the  Protestant  form  of  worship"  has  been 
rejected  by  the  heathen  in  every  other  land,  as  peremptorily  as 
in  India  and  China ;  and  that  of  all  the  same  account  may  be 
given  which  an  Anglican  writer  gave  not  long  since,  in  the 
pages  of  the  Times  newspaper,  when  he  provoked  the  anger  of 
less  candid  co-religionists  by  frankly  confessing,  that  "the 
great  Christian  movement  in  India  has  been  hitherto  Roman 
Catholic" — a  fact  proclaimed  in  earlier  times  by  an  English 
writer,  who  founded  upon  it  a  hope  not  destined  to  be  realized, 
when  he  exclaimed,  in  words  already  quoted,  "  The  Catholics, 
ages  back,  have  converted  numbers  in  India ;  why  then  should 
Protestants  despair  ?"  t 

*  Sketches  of  India,  ch.  vi.,  p.  86. 

f  A  Glance  at  the  East,  by  a  retired  Bengal  Civilian,  p.  12  (1857). 
$  India  and  Christian  Missions,  by  the  llev.  Edward  Storrow,  ch.  ii.,  p.  25; 
ch.  iii.  p.  50  (1859). 
Heb.  iv.  12. 


348  CHAPTER  III. 


RESULTS   OF  EDUCATION. 

Thus  far  we  have  seen  that  Protestantism  has  utterly  failed 
to  propagate  Christianity  in  India,  but  this  would  be  only  an 
imperfect  account  of  its  real  influence  in  that  land.  Would 
that  the  results  of  its  presence  had  been  simply  negative!  In 
China  it  created,  after  fifty  years  of  labor,  the  blasphemous 
sect  of  Tae-ping ;  in  Hindostan  it  has  begotten  a  generation  of 
atheists. 

When  the  agents  of  English  and  American  religions,  who  at 
least  are  not  deficient  in  energy,  discovered  that  sermons  and 
tracts,  bishops  and  missionaries,  were  perfectly  ineffective,  they 
resolved,  with  characteristic  tenacity  of  purpose,  to  call  into 
action  a  new  system  si  propaganda,  and  to  inaugurate  a  vast 
and  elaborate  scheme  by  which  they  still  hoped  to  convert 
defeat  into  victory.  Having  failed  to  convert  the  Hindoo  by 
Bibles  or  preaching,  they  resolved  to  try  the  effect  of  education. 
When  we  have  learned  what  they  have  attempted  in  this  way, 
and  with  what  results,  we  shall  have  completed  our  task,  and 
exhausted  the  whole  field  of  Protestant  agency  in  India. 

Many  years  ago,  and  the  fact  is  worthy  of  notice,  intelligent 
observers  in  India  were  already  anticipating  that  the  educa- 
tional projects  of  the  missionaries  would  prove  as  futile  as  their 
preaching.  "If  the  natives  abandon  Mohammedanism  and 
Hindooism,"  said  one  who  spent  a  life  in  that  land,  "  are  we 
quite  sure  that  they  will  embrace  Christianity  ?"  "  May  we 
not  produce,"  he  added,  "a  kind  of  negative  religion,  an  indif- 
ference to  all  positive  creeds,  and  a  recklessness  of  every  form 
of  devotion?"*  We  are  going  to  hear  the  answer  to  this 
question. 

"  Experience  has  proved,"  says  an  eye-witness  in  1857,  "  that 
scholars  in  the  Indian  colleges,  who  would  take  honorable  rank 
in  the  universities  of  Europe,  relapse,  as  soon  as  they  quit  the 
colleges,  into  the  degrading  practices  of  the  very  religions 
which  their  enlightened  judgment  secretly  condemns.  The 
colleges  of  India  receive  fanatical  idolaters,  they  disgorge  only 
hypocrites."f  This  melancholy  truth  we  shall  now  prove  by 
such  an  accumulation  of  Protestant  testimony  as  to  render  all 
doubt  or  hesitation  impossible. 

The  expenditure  on  native  education  in  India  in  the  year 
1860,  was  three  hundred  and  twenty-four  thousand  eight 

*  Thirty  Years  in  India,  by  Major  H.  Bevan,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  239  (1839). 
f  Les  Anglais  et  I'Inde,  cli.  iii.,  p.  169. 


MISSIONS  IN  INDIA.  349 

hundred  and  fifty-seven  pounds,  and  the  number  of  native 
pupils  nearly  five  hundred  thousand.  As  early  as  1836,  there 
were  already  in  a  single  province  "  thirty  institutions  for  the 
education  of  youth,  at  a  total  expense  of  thirty-five  thousand 
five  .hundred  and  nineteen  pounds  eleven  shillings."*  In  the 
following  year  they  had  increased  to  thirty-eight,  which  cost 
rather  more  than  one  thousand  pounds  each.  Since  that  date, 
they  have  multiplied  in  all  directions  ;  for  besides  the  govern- 
ment institutions,  every  sect  has  its  own,  and  they  are  estab- 
lished, as  in  lieber's  time,  in  opposition  to  each  other.  In 
1854,  we  are  told  that  "  there  are  now  in  Bengal  five  govern- 
ment Anglo-vernacular  colleges,  and  zillah  schools  have  been 
established  in  almost  every  district."  Again,  "  in  the  Presi- 
dency of  Bombay  the  character  of  the  education  conveyed  in 
the  Anglo-vernacular  colleges  is  almost,  if  not  quite,  equal  to 
that  in  Bengal. wt  While  of  Madras  we  are  told,  that,  in  1853, 
there  were  two  thousand  pupils  receiving  daily  instruction  in 
three  missionary  schools,":):  to  say  nothing  of  many  other 
institutions  of  a  similar  class.  In  the  single  city  of  Benares 
there  were  "  fourteen  mission  schools."  From  these  examples 
we  may  judge  what  the  united  efforts  of  the  government,  and 
of  twenty-two  rival  societies,  were  likely  to  have  attempted  in 
other  parts  of  India. 

In  addition  to  their  own  resources,  they  have,  in  one  instance 
at  least,  appropriated  those  of  Catholics.  "The  La  Martiniere 
School  of  Calcutta,  the  annual  income  of  which  can  be  little 
short  of  ten  thousand  pounds,  was  founded  and  endowed  exclu- 
sively by  a  Catholic,  the  late  General  Lamartine.  It  was  well 
known  that  the  general's  intention  was  to  found  and  endow  an 
establishment  for  Catholic  education,  yet  the  principles  on 
which  this  school  is  conducted  are  such  that  no  Catholic  can 
profit  by  it!"§  And  now  for  the  results  of  Protestant  educa- 
tion, whether  imparted  by  the  civil  power,  or  by  the  missionary 
bodies. 

"It  is  the  universal  confession,"  says  Dr.  Grant,  "that  but 
very  few  of  the  children  so  educated  embrace  the  Christian 
faith."||  Other  witnesses,  better  acquainted  with  the  facts  than 
this  Anglican  clergyman,' will  now  tell  us,  that  the  native  pupils 
not  only  decline  to  adopt  the  religion  of  their  teachers,  but 
learn,  almost  without  exception,  to  abandon  all  religion  whatever. 

*  Travels  in  India,  by  Leopold  von  Orlich,  vol.  ii.,  p.  267. 
f  Parliamentary  Papers,  vol.  xxxvii.,  p.  17  (1854). 
|  Mead,  The  Sepoy  Eevolt,  ch.  xxiii..  p.  308. 

§  Notes  on  the  Present  Position  of  Catholics  in  India,  by  the  Rev.  W.  Strick- 
land, p.  18  (1853). 
\  Lecture  iv.,  p.  254. 


350  CHAPTER  III. 

"  A  very  important  question,"  says  the  Lutheran  Yon  Orlich, 
in  1845,  uis:  What  influence  has  education  produced  on  the 
religious  sentiments  of  the  Indians  ?  It  has  hitherto  appeared, 
that  the  young  people  grow  up  as  deists,  and  in  some  cases, 
have  even  converted  their  parents  and  relations  to  deism  /"*  yet, 
"  with  very  few  exceptions,  neither  they  nor  their  families  have 
neglected  the  religious  usages  of  their  ancestors."  "  This  asser- 
tion," we  are  told,  "  is  painfully  corroborated  by  the  Rev.  J. 
Weitbrecht,  and  by  other  highly  credible  authorities."  Mr. 
Weitbrecht's  own  words  are  these :  "  There  are  instances  on 
record  of  Hindoo  fathers  forbidding  their  sons  to  visit  the  Cal- 
cutta College,  on  the  ground  that  all  the  pupils  who  attain 
some  proficiency  become  nasticks,  i.e.,  atheists  "\ 

If  it  be  asked,  why  any  native  students  are  induced  to  fre- 
quent institutions  of  which  these  are  the  admitted  fruits,  Von 
Orlich  answers,  "  Only  in  the  prospect  of  obtaining  a  situation, 
and  the  majority  belong  to  the  lower  classes."  And  this  is  con- 
firmed by  all  Anglo-Indian  writers.  "  It  has  opened  to  them  a 
new  source  of  honorable  livelihood,"  says  Mr.  Johnson.;);  "In 
the  Byculla  schools,"  we  learn  from  another  wrriter,  "  after 
attaining  a  certain  age,  the  male  pupils  are  apprenticed  to 
various  trades,  and  the  females  marry,  or  obtain  situations  as 
servants.  "§  In  the  Bengal  Medical  College  "  each  student  costs 
the  State  one  hundred  pounds  per  annum,"  while  that  of  civil 
engineering  affords  the  only  chance  of  success  to  native  en- 
gineers, "for  whom  the  demand  is  yearly  augmenting."! 

But  these  considerations  do  not  always  affect  the  children  of 
high-caste  parents,  many  of  whom  are  conveyed  to  school  in 
their  carriages,  and  become  pupils  solely  for  the  sake  of  acquir- 
ing knowledge  and  intellectual  training.  "In  Hindostan,"  as 
Mr.  Arnold  well  observes,  "the  Brahmin  has  had  the  sagacity,  in 
losing  his  priestly  ascendency,  to  seize  upon  that  which  educa- 
tion can  confer,  and  our  English  schools  and  colleges  are  crowded 
with  his  caste-fellows."T  But  Anglo-Protestant  education  has 
had  the  same  effect  upon  them  as  upon  all  the  rest.  "The 
results  have  been,"  says  Mr.  Knighton,  "great  intellectual 
acuteness,  and  total  want  of  moral  principle ;  utter  infidelity  in 
religion,  combined  with  an  enthusiastic  worship  of  reason  and 
money."**  a  Even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances/' 

*  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  276. 
f  Missions  in  Bengal,  ch.  v.,  p.  219. 
|  The  Stranger  in  India,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  137. 
^  A  Year  and  a  Day  in  the  East,  ch.  iii.,  p.  49. 
|  Martin,  British  India,  ch.  v.,  p.  233. 

1  The  Marquis  of  Dalhousie's  Administration  of  British  India,  by  Edwin 
Arnold,  M.A.,  vol.  i..  ch.  xi.,  p.  348. 
**  Tropical  Sketches,  preface,  p.  vii. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  351 

says  Sir  Emerson  Tennent,  "  the  results  have  been  deplorably 
meagre  in  relation  to  conversion  from  the  native  superstitions."* 
Out  of  seventeen  thousand  three  hundred  and  sixty  pupils  in 
schools  maintained  at  the  public  expense,  only  three  hundred 
and  thirty-six  even  professed,  in  any  sense  whatever,  the  official 
religion,f  and  we  know  what  the  profession  was  worth. 

Nor  is  there  any  distinction  whatever  between  the  influence  of 
government  and  of  missionary  education,  though  the  latter  is 
imparted  by  professing  Christians,  while  u  the  ordinary  native 
teachers  of  the  government  schools  are  usually  bigoted  Hindus 
or  deists,  largely  imbued  with  the  spirit  and  the  principles  of 
Paine." J  "Missionary  schools,"  we  are  told  by  a  high  author- 
ity, "  do  not  make  more  converts  to  Christianity  than  Govern- 
ment schools.  A  most  zealous  missionary  in  India  assured  me, 
with  tears  in  his  eyes,  that,  after  twenty -five  years'  experience, 
he  looked  upon  the  conversion  of  the  Hindoos,  under  present 
circumstances,  to  be  hopeless,  without  the  interposition  of  a 
miracle."§  Yet  the  pupils  in  these  schools  read  the  Scriptures 
daily  for  years,  and  receive  with  perfect  submission  whatever 
lessons  their  teachers  propose  to  them  !  Thus  a  Presbyterian 
writer,  who  was  for  six  years  the  associate  and  advocate  of 
Protestant  missionaries,  records  of  Dr.  DufFs  Free  Church 
College  at  Calcutta,  "  Out  of  one  thousand  pupils  only  about 
twelve  are  professed  Christians ;"  although,  "  when  they  can 
understand  English,  they  are  instructed  exactly  as  Christian 
boys  would  be — in  fact,  they  are  better  instructed  in  Chris- 
tianity than  half  the  young  men  at  home." 

At  Baranagar,  we  are  told  by  the  same  writer,  the  pupils 
"  displayed  a  perfect  knowledge  of  all  the  doctrines  on  which 
they  were  questioned,  especially  the  cardinal  point  of  justifica- 
tion, which  they  explained  in  the  clearest  manner  "\  Yet  not 
one  of  them  was  a  Christian,  nor  had  the  slightest  intention  of 
becoming  one. 

At  Benares,  where  there  are  fourteen  missionary  schools, 
"  all  the  boys  read  the  New  Testament Not  one  con- 
version has  ever  taken  place  in  this  school." 

"  Coimbatore,"  says  the  Calcutta  correspondent  of  the  Times, 

in  1862, — of  which  the  inhabitants  lately  petitioned  the  govern- 

Bment  "  to  pay  priests  to  bring  down  rain," — "  has  belonged  to 

us  for  eighty  years,  yet  its  darkness  is  as  dense  as  an  African 

hamlet's,  where  the  white  man  has  never  been.     And  this  is 

*  Christianity  in  Ceylon,  ch.  vi.,  p.  276. 

f  Parliamentary  Papers,  vol.  xxxviii.,  p.  176. 

i  Storrow,  ch.  iii.,  p.  51. 

§  The  Times,  November  24,  1858. 

|  Six  Years  in  India,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  84. 


352  CHAPTER   III. 

more  or  less  true  of  all  the  masses  of  India,  for  we  have  never 


begun  to  educate  them."* 


Of  the  "  Robert-Money  Institution"  in  Bombay,  having  six- 
teen teachers,  and  "  scholarships"  worth  about  eighty  pounds 
each  per  annum,  this  is  the  official  report:  "I  see  no  evidences 
that  the  hard  crust  of  unbelief  has  been  broken  up  .....  I  see 
no  symptoms  that  it  is  about  to  be  broken  up  in  the  minds  of 
' 


At  Bombay,  "  no  conversions  have  as  yet  taken  place  at  the 
Established  Kirk's  school."  Yet  the  scholars  were  not  only' 
diligently  catechized,  and  instructed  in  the  Bible,  but  taught  to 
quote  the  usual  array  of  texts  against  "  the  Romanists  who 
worship  images."  Of  the  American  schools  in  the  same  city, 
the  missionaries  themselves  reported  thus  to  their  employers 
some  years  ago  :  "  The  schools  are  well  attended.  Many  of 
the  children  learn  rapidly.  We  cannot  cheer  your  heart  by 
telling  you  of  the  conversion  of  any  of  them."J 

In  the  "American  Madura  Mission,"  as  the  Rev.  W.  Tracy 
confesses  in  1858,  after  thirty  years'  toil,  and  an  average  attend- 
ance of  nearly  four  thousand  scholars  at  a  time,  all  instructed 
in  Protestantism,  and  "  expected  to  attend  religious  service  on 
the  Sabbath,  few,  if  any,  conversions  occurred,  either  among 
the  scholars  or  masters.  "§ 

At  Loodiana,  we  are  told  by  Mrs.  Mackenzie  of  'baptized 
children,  "  none  of  whom  had  any  acquaintance  with  the  Gos- 
pel." It  is  true  that  she  adds,  that  many  of  the  u  so-called 
Christian  children"  of  Europeans  in  India  have  still  less. 

Of  another  establishment  in  the  north  of  India,  the  same 
witness  observes  :  "  The  orphan  school  here  is  really  disheart- 
ening to  the  missionaries.  Mrs.  Rudolph  told  me  that  she  had 
taught  them  Scripture  history  until  she  was  quite  weary  of  re- 
peating it." 

Yet  these  orphan  schools,  which  exist  in  various  parts  of 
India,  were  the  latest  experiment  of  Protestant  missionaries. 
Baron  Von  Schonberg  relates  that  at  Secundra,  in  a  season  of 
famine,  "  six  hundred  children  were  purchased  for  eighteen 
hundred  rupees,  which  certainly  was  not  an  exorbitant  price."! 
But  the  same  deadly  blight  which  has  withered  every  other 
scheme  fell  on  this  ;  for  Mrs.  Mackenzie  assures  us,  that 
"children  baptized  in  orphan  schools  often  turn  out  ill,  and 
then  bring  much  greater  discredit  on  the  Christian  Church 

*  The  Times,  November  28,  1862. 

f  Report  of  Church  Misximiary  Society,  1862,  p.  69. 

±  Foreign  Missionary  Chronicle,  June,  1833,  p.  45  (Pittsburgh). 

|  Proceedings  of  the  South  India  Missionary  Conference,  p.  20. 

I  Travels  in  India  and  Kashmir,  vol.  i.,  cli.  x.,  p.  193. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  353 

than  would  be  possible  if  they  had  never  been  nominal  mem- 
bers of  it."  Other  writers  report,  as  we  have  seen,  that  these 
orphans  invariably  return  to  the  religion  of  their  parents,  and 
generally  display  worse  qualities  than  those  who  have  never 
received  missionary  instruction. 

And  so  well  known  are  these  frightful  results  of  Protestant 
education  in  India,  that  even  the  men  who  are  most  concerned 
to  hide  the  unwelcome  truth  are  constrained  to  admit  it.  Thus 
Dr.  Bickersteth,  at  a  meeting  of  what  is  called  the  Society  for  the 
Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  confessed  of  the  Hindoos :  "  They 
unlearn  their  own  superstitions,  but  they  do  not  learn  the  Gospel 
of  Christ.  They  become,  in  fact,  intellectual,  accomplished  un- 
believers."41 And  it  is  to  England,  and  to  her  emissaries,  that 
this  people,  once  conspicuous  among  all  heathen  nations  for 
deep  religious  instinct,  owe  this  irreparable  calamity.  "  Per- 
haps it  is  not  known,"  said  Dr.  Samuel  Wilberforce,  in  1855, 
"  that  there  has  been  a  greater  reprinting  in  India  of  the  de- 
istical  works  which  have  been  published  in  this  country  than 
was  ever  known  to  be  printed  in  this  country."f  And  this  is 
confirmed  by  a  communication  sent  from  India  to  the  American 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  which  reports  that,  "  probably  no 
English  works  are  read  more  among  the  native  population  than 
those  of  infidel  writers:";):  so  that  when  the  Parsis  of  Bombay 
had,  not  long  ago,  a  public  controversy  witli  certain  Protestant 
missionaries,  their  chief  advocate  "endeavored  to  refute  Chris- 
tianity by  using  the  arguments  which  Yoltaire  employed  against 
Catholics."§  The  Hindoo,  more  logical  than  his  feeble  teachers, 
turns  against  Christianity  the  very  weapons  with  which  they 
would  arm  him  against  the  Church.  "Why  should  we  become 
Christians,"  is  the  argument  which  they  ingeniously  retort  upon 
missionaries  who  never  open  their  mouths  without  reviling  the 
Catholic  faith,  "when  you  tell  us  that  three-fourths  of  the  Chris- 
tian world  have  adopted  a  creed  no  way  superior  to  our  own  ?"J 

The  remaining  chapters  of  these  volumes  will  more  and  more 
confirm  the  fact,  already  proved  for  China  and  India,  that 
Protestantism  is  everywhere  generating  in  pagan  lands  worse 
evils  than  those  which  it  seeks  to  remedy.  "  In  almost  every 
part  of  India,"  says  the  Kev.  Mr.  Percival,  "  the  spread  of  the 
English  language  and  literature  is  rapidly  altering  the  phases  of 
the  Hindoo  mind,  giving  it  a  skeptical,  infidel  cast."T  "  Prot- 
estant education,"  observes  a  native  teacher  employed  by  one 

*  The  Times,  October  25, 1858. 
f  lUd.,  October  27. 

\  History  of  the  American  Bible  Society,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  247. 
4  Mohl,  Rapports  f  aits  d  la  Societe  Asiatique,  tome  ii.,  p.  45. 
I  Thirty  Years  in  India,  by  Major  H.  Bevan,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  240. 
if  The  Land  of  the  Veda,  ch.  xx.,  p.  472. 

24 


354:  CHAPTER   III. 

of  the  sects,  "has  unsettled  the  minds  of  thousands  of  young 
men  in  the  religion  of  their  ancestors,  a  thing  in  itself  not  to  be 
deplored  ;  but  it  has  sent  forth  hundreds  of  others  as  confirmed 
infidels."*  "The  schools  form  admirable  champions  of  tem- 
poralities," says  an  experienced  observer, — speaking  of  all 
"  under  the  clergy  of  different  denominations," — "  and  nothing 
else"\  "  Results,  as  they  have  hitherto  manifested  them- 
selves," says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Clark  son,  "  are  unfavorable,  not 
only  to  the  Gospel,  but  to  the  principles  of  natural  religion." 
And  then  this  missionary  continues  as  follows :  "  Some  have 
argued  that  the  Indians,  by  receiving  an  education  which 
undermines  their  superstitions,  are  being  prepared  for  the 
reception  of  Christianity.  We  believe  that  they  are  being 

Erepared  for  occupying  a  position  extremely  antagonistic  to  it. 
everal  documents  from  missionaries  at  Bombay,  Poonah,  Su- 
rat,  Calcutta,  Delhi,  Madras,  and  Benares,  corroborate  all  that 

I  have  here  stated None  can  doubt  that  infidelity,  in  its 

most  absolute  sense,  is  on  the  increase.  There  is  no  connection 
between  the  natives  ceasing  to  be  Hindoos,  and  becoming  Chris- 
tians^ "  Nana  Sahib,"  says  Mr.  Bruce  Norton,  in  1858,  "  has 
been  called  ;  a  specimen  of  an  educated  native' — and  perhaps, 
morally,  he  is  so."§ 

And  this  is  the  language  of  all  the  witnesses,  of  whatever 
class.  "  A  missionary  may  write  home,"  observes  a  well-known 
authority,  "that  he  has  made  a  Christian,  when,  in  reality,  he 
ought  to  state  that  he  has  destroyed  a  Hindoo."]  "  We  find  a 
Hindoo,"  said  Mr.  Leith,  before  a  committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  "  and  we  leave  an  atheist. JT  "  There  is  little  doubt," 
is  the  declaration  of  another  writer,  "  that  the  present  generation 
of  educated  natives  will  become  deists."*'35'  "  It  seems  to  be 
universally  admitted,"  we  learn  from  Miss  Martineau,  "  that  the 
whole  intelligent  population  which  has  been  lifted  out  of  the 
indigenous  system  of  thought  by  education  has  no  religion 
whatever, ."ff  uThe  educated  native,"  the  House  of  Lords  was 
lately  assured,  "  is  either  a  hypocrite  or  a  latitudinarian,  with 
the  heart  of  an  atheist  under  the  robe  of  an  idolater,"  and  "  the 
greater  body  are  but  too  surely  tending  to  a  state  morally  lower 
than  that  from  which  education  rescued  them."i$  Lastly,  a 

*  A  Sermon,  by  Narayan  Sheshadri,  p.  40  (1853). 

Observations  on  India,  by  a  Resident  there  many  years,  p.  33. 

India  and  the  Gospel,  Lect.  v.,  p.  279. 

Topics  for  Indian  Statesmen,  ch.  xii.,  p.  375. 

Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  xii.,  p.  177. 

Quoted  by  Mr.  Bruce  Norton,  ch.  xii.,  p.  355. 
**  Stocqueler,  Handbook  of  India,  p.  532. 
•ff  Suggestions  towards  the  Future  Government  of  India,  p.  110. 
#  Speech  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  The  Times,  July  3,  1860. 


MISSIONS   IN   INDIA.  355 

native  "  scholar  of  the  Elphinstone  Institution,"  in  which 
"  every  boy  is  made  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  Holy 
Scriptures,"*  reveals  this  horrible  result  of  Protestant  education 
upon  the  mass  of  pupils,  of  all  classes,  throughout  Hindostan : 
u  They  have  no  more  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  than  in  their  own 
religion.  They  'believe  the  Jesus  of  the  English  and  the  Krishna 
of  the  Hindus  to  be  alike  impostors"-^ 


CONCLUSION. 

There  is  something  in  these  appalling  facts  which  defies  com- 
ment. If  every  Protestant  missionary  in  India  had  been,  from 
the  first,  such  as  Middleton,  or  Kiernander,  or  Buchanan,  even 
then  we  might  have  marvelled  at  results  at  once  so  uniform 
and  so  deadly.  But  among  the  agents  of  Protestant  societies 
there  have  been  men,  of  various  sects,  who  sincerely  desired  to 
do  good,  and  who  were  qualified,  both  by  education  and  by 
personal  character,  to  exert  a  certain  moral  influence  upon  the 
Hindoo.  Yet  they  can  only  create  deatli !  It  is  in  the  air,  and 
under  their  feet.  It  exhales  from  their  lips,  and  is  generated 
by  their  touch.  Even  the  Hindoo,  the  most  profoundly  religious 
of  all  non-Christian  races,  loses  every  vestige  of  faith  as  soon 
as  he  opens  his  ears  to  them.  The  man  who  yesterday  was 
absorbed  in  prayer,  or  lacerated  his  flesh  to  propitiate  a  god 
whom  he  feared  without  knowing,  to-day  laughs  aloud  both  at 
Christ  and  Vishnu.  In  the  interval,  a  Protestant  missionary 
has  passed  by  him,  and  he  has  become  another  man.  For  years 
he  grows  up  under  his  guidance  and  instruction  ;  he  studies 
with  him  the  mysteries  of  Christian  doctrine;  he  penetrates 
the  secrets  of  European  science ;  and  when  at  last  his  pupilage 
is  over,  and  he  closes  behind  him  the  door  of  his  school,  he  is 
found  to  be  only  a  sensualist  and  a  blasphemer.  Whence  this 
horrible  blight  ?  Whence  this  contrast  between  the  Hindoo, 
taught  by  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross,  and  clinging  with 
invincible  constancy  to  the  faith  of  Christ  through  every  trial 
which  can  befall  him, — "really  and  truly  Christian"  as  even  a 
pagan  native  has  told  us  ;  "  insisting,"  as  Sir  William  Sleeman 
reports,  even  when  employed  by  the  English,  "  upon  going  to 
Divine  service  at  the  prescribed  hours :"  and  sometimes  display- 
ing, as  Father  St.  Cyr  observes,  the  crowning  grace  of  religious 
vocation  ; — and  the  same  Hindoo,  moulded  from  infancy,  fash- 
ioned and  instructed  by  the  Protestant  minister,  only  to  become 

*  Life  in  Bombay,  ch.  xii.,  p.  237. 

f  Six  Years  in  India,  vol.  iii ,  ch.  viii.,  p.  277. 


356  CHAPTER  III. 

at  last  more  guilty  and  more  profane  than  he  was  before? 
This  is  a  question  which  we  shall  examine  with  more  advan- 
tage, when  we  have  traced  the  same  fact  in  every  other  region 
of  the  earth. 

And  now,  if  any  have  hitherto  doubted,  in  good  faith,  what 
was  the  real  character  of  the  great  outbreak  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  whose  work  it  was  designed  to  do  in  the  world, 
here  is  one  more  fact  which  may  assist  their  judgment.  Once 
more  we  have  seen  the  Church  and  the  Sects  in  action.  Once 
more  we  have  applied  the  Divine  rule,  By  their  fruits  ye  shall 
know  them.  We  have  seen  what  the  Catholic  missionaries  in 
India  have  been,  and  what  they  have  accomplished ;  we  have 
seen  also  by  what  methods  -  the  Protestant  emissaries  seek  to 
approach  the  Hindoo,  and  what  is  the  fruit  of  their  work. 
Powerless  to  win  the  heathen  to  the  Christianity  which  their 
own  example,  their  shallow  and  incoherent  philosophy,  their 
worldly  maxims,  luxurious  habits,  and  mutual  conflicts  and 
jealousies,  have  taught  him  to  despise,  they  have  been  only  too 
successful  in  impeding  the  work  of  those  who  alone  could  have 
set  the  captive  free,  and  in  adding  to  the  original  vices  of  the 
Indian  the  new  crimes  of  hypocrisy,  intemperance,  and  unbe- 
lief. They  have  taught  him  indeed  that  his  gods  are  impostors, 
but  only  by  convincing  him  that  their  own  are  no  less  so. 
This,  as  they  freely  admit,  is  the  beginning  and  end  of  all  their 
influence  upon  him. 

The  reader  has,  then,  before  him  the  materials  upon  which  to 
exercise  once  more  that  judicial  function  which  it  deeply  con- 
cerns him  to  discharge  with  deliberate  care  ;  and  as  he  reviews 
the  facts  which  have  now  been  related,  and  the  amazing  con- 
trast which  they  reveal,  will  perhaps  approach  the  consideration 
of  the  same  history  in  other  lands  with  a  deepening  convic- 
tion, that  we  have  fulfilled  our  promise  of  inviting  him  to  "  a 
new  controversy,  differing  from  all  others  in  this,  that  God  has 
already  taken  it  out  of  the  hands  of  men  to  decide  it  Himself." 


CHAPTEE  IY. 


MISSIONS    IN    CEYLON. 


IT  will  be  expedient  to  confine  within  comparatively  narrow 
limits  the  history  of  Christian  missions  in  this  island.  The 
brief  period  subsequent  to  the  establishment  of  British  au- 
thority, though  that  rule  dates  only  from  the  commencement 
of  the  present  century,  will  more  than  suffice  to  afford  us  abun- 
dant illustrations  of  the  contrast  which  we  have  already  traced 
in  other  regions. 

A  Protestant  missionary  society,  assembled  on  a  solemn  oc- 
casion, and  moved  by  an  unwonted  impulse  of  candor,  appre- 
ciated in  the  following  terms  the  work  of  the  three  great  Pow- 
ers which  have  held  sway,  either  together  or  in  succession,  in 
the  land  of  spices  and  pearls.  "  The  exertions  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  in  the  conversion  of  the  natives  having  been  greater 
than  those  of  the  Dutch,  and  those  of  the  Dutch  having  greatly 
exceeded  the  British,  it  is  in  the  same  proportion  that  the  three 
classes  possess  a  permanent  influence  over  the  native  mind'."' 
The  admission  is  not  without  value,  especially  from  such  a 
source,  but  it  might  have  been  more  complete.  The  influence 
of  the  British,  as  far  as  religion  is  concerned,  has  yet  to  be 
acquired  ;  that  of  the  Dutch,  so  long  supreme  in  the  island,  has 
vanished  without  leaving  a  trace ;  while  that  of  the  Catholics, 
which  preceded  them  both,  has  survived  the  dissolution  of  the 
one,  and  gained  its  peaceful  triumphs  in  spite  of  the  jealous 
hostility  of  the  other.  These  three  positions  we  shall  now 
establish,  by  the  evidence  of  Protestant  witnesses  of  many 
creeds  and  various  social  position,  but  all  familiar,  from  per- 
sonal observation  and  scrutiny,  with  the  facts  which  they 
record. 

*  Report  of  the  Society  for  Missions  to  Africa  and  the  East ;  10th  Anniver- 
sary, p.  79. 


358  CHAPTER   IV. 

^  The  first  period  of  the  history  of  Christianity  in  Ceylon  we  will 
dismiss,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  with  a  few  words.  The  Catholic 
missionaries  in  this  island  during  the  whole  epoch  of  the  Por- 
tuguese dominion,  were  such  as  we  have  already  seen  them  in 
China  and  India ;  and  there  is  perhaps  no  need  to  describe 
again  a  type  of  character,  or  to  recount  the  details  of  an  apos- 
tolic warfare,  with  which  by  this  time  we  are  sufficiently  fa- 
miliar. St.  Francis  was  one  of  their  number,  and  where  he 
was  we  may  be  sure  the  angels  were  not  far  distant.  In  his 
gracious  form  the  Cingalese  recognized  a  prophet  of  the  true 
God,  and  by  his  companions  and  their  successors  thousands 
were  converted  to  the  faith.  "  Illustrious  examples  of  pious 
devotion  to  the  Saviour's  cause,"  says  a  candid  Wesleyan  mis- 
sionary in  Ceylon,  "  were  furnished  by  the  missionaries  of  the 
Koman  Catholic  faith."*  Jesuits,  Franciscans,  and  Oratorians 
rivalled  each  other  in  wisdom  and  charity ;  and  so  solid  was 
their  work,  here  as  elsewhere,  that  neither  afflictions  nor  tempta- 
tions, neither  the  cruel  persecutions  of  the  Dutch,  nor  the  more 
dangerous  enticements  of  the  English  and  Americans,  have  had 
any  other  effect  upon  the  Catholic  natives  than  to  prove,  as 
Protestants  will  presently  assure  us,  their  invincible  constancy. 

Ceylon,  like  every  other  land  in  which  the  faith  has  been 
planted,  was  fertilized  by  the  blood  of  martyrs.  As  early  as 
1546,  men  who  had  come  from  distant  lands  with  the  message 
of  peace  found  here  a  glorious  death.  In  1548,  one  of  the  kings 
of  the  island  was  converted,  and  the  Franciscans  already  num- 
bered twelve  thousand  native  Christians  in  Columbo."f  In 
1602,  the  sons  of  St.  Francis  welcomed  a  new  band  of  auxiliaries, 
de  Guzman,  de  Mendoza,  and  other  Fathers  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  who  came  to  share  the  burden  of  their  toils.  In  1616, 
Fathers  John  Metella  and  Louis  Pelingotti  of  that  society, 
having  penetrated  into  the  interior,  yielded  up  their  lives  in 
testimony  of  the  truths  which  they  preached.  Four  new  vic- 
tims hastened  to  offer  themselves  in  their  place.  Sociro  was 
the  first  captured,  and  the  first  martyred.  In  the  following 
year,  1628,  Matthew  Fernandez  and  Antony  Pecci  embraced 
the  same  lot.  And  the  heathen,  as  a  modern  historian  observes, 
were  not  the  most  implacable  enemies  of  these  generous  apostles. 
De  Lyma  and  Moureyra  were  attacked  at  sea  by  the  Dutch,  and 
their  vessels  burned.  Moureyra,  having  cast  himself  into  the 
waves,  was  pursued  by  the  Calvinists,  and  killed  with  harpoons. 
Antony  de  Vasconcellos,  who  had  resigned  the  highest  dignities 
to  embrace  the  apostolic  life,  died  by  poison  in  1633  ;  and  in  the 

*  A  Narrative  of  the  Mission  to  Ceylon,  by  the  Rev.  William  Harvard, 
introd.,  p.  63. 

f  Henrion,  toine  i.,  2de  partie,  p.  465. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  359 

following  year,  Andrada  perished  in  the  same  manner.*  And 
these  generous  martyrs  were  succeeded  by  others,  who  in  their 
turn  fought  the  good  tight,  and  were  able  to  inspire  even  the 
effeminate  Cingalese,  as  Baldseus  confesses,  in  words  which 
shall  be  quoted  hereafter,  with  courage  enough  to  welcome  the 
same  fate.  Let  us  hasten  at  once  to  later  times,  and  to  events 
of  which  we  may  accept  the  history  from  Protestant  witnesses. 

Mr.  Pridham,  a  recent  writer  on  Ceylon, — whose  sentiments 
may  be  inferred  from  his  own  avowal,  that  he  greatly  prefers 
"  the  tenets  of  Buddhism,"  with  all  its  madness  of  idolatry  and 
superstition,  "  to  the  insensate  and  infinitely  more  debasing 
tenets  of  Rome,"  that  is,  to  the  religion  of  Fenelon  and  St. 
Francis  Xavier, — will  first  give  us  his  valuable  testimony.  It 
is  curious  to  see  this  gentleman  forced,  by  a  power  which  even 
prejudice  so  intense  could  not  resist,  to  utter  blessings  when 
his  mouth  was  filled  with  curses.  Mr.  Pridham,  then,  thus 
describes  one  of  the  later  Catholic  missionaries  in  Ceylon,  the 
Oratorian  Father  Yaz  :  "  He  went  about  from  place  to  place, 
through  swamps  and  jungles,  making  many  converts  among 
the  heathen  by  the  austerity  of  his  manners.  His  voluntary 
poverty  was  such  that  he  would  not  accept  money ;  his  modesty 
such,  that  in  confessing  women  he  would  avert  his  eyes ;  and 
his  temperance  such,  that  besides  frequently  abstaining  from 
food,  he  lived  on  the  coarsest  diet.  Catholicism  appeared  to 
revive  throughout  Jaffna,  and  the  Dutch  attributed  it  to  the 
revival  of  some  Jesuit  in  disguise." 

But  the  Dutch,  whose  only  argument  was  violence,  caught 
the  Oratorian,  and  shut  him  up  in  prison.  Here,  says  Mr. 
Pridham,  "  he  applied  himself  to  the  study  of  Singhalese,  in 
which  he  made  himself  a  proficient."  Prisons,  it  seems,  are 
but  a  clumsy  mode  of  fighting  against  God,  as  the  Jews  found 
when  they  had  taken  Peter  captive.  Like  him,  Father  Yaz 
became  free  again  ;  and  as  a  deadly  pestilence  was  now  raging, 
Mr.  Pridham,  who  thinks  the  religion  of  Yaz  "more  debasing" 
than  even  Buddhism,  tells  us  what  he  did  next.  "  He  followed 
the  sick  into  the  jungles,  and  building  huts  as  well  as  time  and 
place  would  permit,  there  sheltered  them  from  the  elements 
and  the  attacks  of  wild  beasts ;  in  a  word,  he  contrived  to  supply 
every  want,  temporal  and  spiritual,  performed  the  most  menial 
services,  opened  hospitals  in  the  deserted  houses,  and  dared 
every  thing  for  their  relief.  The  result  was  that  numbers 
who  were  cured  joined  the  Church,  and  had  their  children 
baptized.  The  admirable  conduct  of  Yaz  gained  him  the  con- 
fidence of  the  king,  who  was  only  prevented  from  rewarding 

*  Cretineau  Joly,  tome  iii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  250. 


360  CHAPTER   IV. 

him  by  being  assured  that  he  was  too  disinterested  to  accept 
any  thing."  But  Mr.  Pridham  was  not  permitted  to  stop  even 
here,  and  so  he  continues  his  instructive  narration  as  follows : 
"  To  relate  all  the  undertakings  of  Padre  Yaz,  and  to  unfold 
the  full  tale  of  his  energy,  boldness,  austerity,  and  devotion, 
would  be  incompatible  with  our  design ;  suffice  to  say,  that 
the  Dutch  were  never  able  to  eradicate  the  faith  thus  planted 
by  his  courage,  and  Catholicism  continued  to  increase  in  Ceylon 
till  it  arrived  at  its  present  position."* 

Such  were  the  evangelists  who  labored  in  Ceylon.  If  their 
Master  had  not  blessed  them  and  their  work,  Christianity 
would  be  only  an  idle  fable.  But  He  suffered  them  and  their 
spiritual  children  to  be  assaulted  by  the  enemy,  like  their 
brethren  in  other  lands,  because  He  knew  they  could  bear  the 
trial.  It  was  the  Dutch  Calvinists  whom  the  Evil  One  employed 
as  his  instruments  to  vex  and  torment  them ;  let  us  see  how 
the  Protestants  of  Holland  fulfilled  their  mission,  and  with 
what  results. 

The  Dutch  have  not  acquired  a  high  reputation,  even  among 
their  co-religionists,  as  judicious  or  successful  missionaries.  "I 
never  saw  such  cold,  calculating  people,"  says  Dr.  Joseph  "Wolff, 
"  as  the  members  of  the  Dutch  Missionary  Society. "f  And  as 
he  saw  more  of  them,  the  impression  was  only  confirmed ;  for 
at  a  later  period  he  once  more  declares,  "There  is  scarcely  any- 
where such  a  lukewarm  set  of  people  as  the  members  of  the 
Dutch  Bible  and  Missionary  Societies ;  they  are  as  watery  as 
their  country."  Even  their  own  countrymen  seem  to  have 
avowed  the  same  opinion,  for  the  captain  of  a  Dutch  ship  of 
war  told  him  in  confidence,  "  Our  missionaries  in  the  Dutch 
colonies  made  many  converts,  but  government  would  not  per- 
mit them  to  convert  any  more,  for  when  they  were  converted, 
they  got  drunk,  and  refused  to  work  on  Sunday."J 

But  Dr.  Wolff  is  not  alone  in  his  unfavorable  estimate  of 
Dutch  missionaries.  In  India,  in  the  great  Indian  Archipelago, 
in  Ceylon,  in  South  America,  everywhere  and  always,  they 
b^ve  been  the  same,  and  have  provoked  the  same  comments. 
Even  in  Japan,  where  they  so  long  possessed  a  kind  of  commer- 
cial sovereignty,  their  real  character  appears  to  have  been 
accurately  discriminated.  "  The  Dutch  assured  the  Japanese," 
we  are  told  by  Golownin,  that  they  were  no  Christians^  and 
obtained  permission  to  trade  with  them."§  "I  took  the 

*  Ceylon  and  its  Dependencies,  by  Charles  Pridham,  Esq.,  vol.  ii.,  app.,  pp. 
808-11. 

f  Journal,  p.  39. 
;  Ibid.,  p.  14. 
§  Recollections  of  Japan,  by  Captain  Golownin,  ch.  iii.  (1819). 


MISSIONS  IN   CEYLON.  361 

liberty,"  says  Count  Benyowski,  who  visited  that  country 
towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  "  to  ask  the  king 
whether  he  thought  the  Hollanders  were  Christians ;  and  he 
replied,  that  merchants  had  no  religion,  their  only  faith  con- 
sisting in  getting  money,  while  they  gave  themselves  very  little 
trouble  about  the  belief  of  a  God."*  Their  direct  missionary 
efforts  have  produced  just  the  results  which  the  spirit  imputed 
to  them  by  this  sagacious  monarch  would  be  likely  to  secure. 
Thus  Mr.  Kolif,  though  a  native  of  Holland,  tells  us,  that  in 
their  island  of  Damma,  "by  far  the  greater  portion  of  the  in- 
habitants are  either  heathens,  or  individuals  once  Christians, 
who  have  returned  to  their  former  habits  ;"  while  of  the  Arm 
islands  the  same  witness  unwillingly  reports,  "  Our  religion  has 
retrograded,  while  Islamism  has  advanced  considerably. "f 

The  same  facts  are  repeated,  with  exactly  the  same  com- 
ments, by  many  English  writers,  in  spite  of  their  religious  sym- 
pathies. Of  Batavia,  where  the  Dutch  converts  have  long  en- 
joyed "  a  translation  of  the  whole  Bible,"  Dr.  Morrison  writes 
as  follows  :  "  It  is  painful  to  remark  that  the  native  Christians 
of  this  city,  if  such  they  can  be  called,  are  sunk  in  deplorable 
ignorance  and  vice,  and  in  no  way  remarkably  distinguished 
from  their  heathen  brethren,  except  by  the  formal  abandon- 
ment of  idolatry,  and  the  equally  formal  adoption  of  the 
Christian  name."  The  same  Protestant  historian  confesses, 
that  although  uin  Amboyna  and  the  surrounding  islands  there 
were  upwards  of  fifty  churches," — the  inhabitants  having  been 
u compelled  by  law"  to  profess  Christianity, — "they  were,  after 
all,  but  baptized  pagans  ;"  and  he  adds,  "  it  seems  an  absolute 
burlesque  upon  the  New  Testament  to  speak  of  the  mass  of  the 
Dutch  converts  in  Amboyna  as  Christians. "$ 

In  1853,  Mr.  Gerstaecker  reports  once  more,  that  the  Ma- 
hometans are  in  every  respect,  superior  to  the  so-called 
Christians.  He  even  affirms  that  the  results  of  "  conversion" 
have  been,  "in  almost  every  instance,"  so  deplorable,  especially 
in  the  augmentation  of  immorality,  that  "Government  does  not 
like  to  see  missionaries  go  amongst  the  people,  and  if  it  does 
not  prevent  their  teaching,  most  certainly  does  not  support  it."§ 
Lastly,  Sir  John  Bowring  and  Mr.  Oliphant  confirm,  with 
ample  details,  these  gloomy  statements.  "The  interests  of 
trade,"  says  the  former,  contrasting  the  worldly  spirit  of  the 
Dutch  with  the  religious  zeal  of  the  Spaniards,  "have  ever 

*  Trawls  of  Comte  de  Benyowski,  vol.  i.,  p.  399  (1790). 
f  Voyages  of  the  Dourga,  by  D.  H.  Kolff,  ch.  vi.,  p.  93  ;  ch.  xii.,  p.  195. 
\  The  Fathers  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  by  John  Morrison,  D.D., 
vol.  i.,  pp.  71,  75. 

§  Voyage,  &c.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  257. 


362  CHAPTER   IV. 

been  the  predominant  consideration  among  Dutch  colonizers."* 
"  In  carrying  out  their  ruthless  policy  against  the  Christians," 
observes  Mr.  Oliphant,  "  the  Japanese  always  found  in  the 
Dutch  ready  and  willing  assistants."  It  was  the  latter  who 
"  bombarded,  at  the  behest  of  the  Japanese  government,  thirty- 
seven  thousand  Christians,  who  were  cooped  up  within  the 
walls  of  Samabarra."  And  these  eager  Protestants,  who  not 
only  denied  that  they  were  Christians  themselves,  but  gladly 
assisted  pagans  in  slaughtering  those  who  were,  have  failed  in 
securing  the  very  prize  for  which  they  committed  crimes  almost 
unparalleled  in  human  annals.  At  home,  they  have  seen  the 
fairest  provinces  of  their  kingdom  severed  from  them  ;  while  in 
Japan,  "they  have  not  even  had  the  profits  of  a  lucrative  trade 
to  console  them  for  the  ignominy  with  which  they  have  been 
treated  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  has  steadily  diminished  in  propor- 
tion as  the  indignities  to  which  they  have  been  exposed  have 
increased. "f  Mr.  Southey  will  tell  us  hereafter  that  their  con- 
duct, and  its  results,  were  .exactly  the  same  in  South  America; 
and  Dr.  Hartwig,  noticing  their  "  insatiable  greed,"  observes 
that  in  the  Moluccas,  where  "  the  natives  were  treated  with 
unmerciful  cruelty,  and  blood  flowed  in  torrents  to  keep  up  the 
price  of  cloves  and  nutmegs,"  they  have  lost  the  monopoly 
which  they  strove  to  retain  by  such  means,  and  "  the  ports  are 
thrown  open  to  the  commerce  of  all  nations.";); 

Mr.  Temminck,  who  has  written  an  enthusiastic  apology  of 
Dutch  government  in  the  East,  declares,  as  if  he  desired  to 
redeem  their  sullied  reputation,  that  "  religious  toleration" 
makes  their  Indian  possessions  a  "terrestrial  paradise. r§  We 
shall  see  immediately  that  Ceylon,  under  their  government, 
formed  no  part  of  this  apocryphal  paradise  ;  bur,  before  we 
return  to  our  immediate  subject,  let  us  add,  in  conclusion,  the 
following  impressive  statement,  by  an  energetic  American 
Protestant,  of  what  the  Dutch  have  really  done  in  the  Indian 
Archipelago:  "For  two  hundred  years  and  more,  three  millions 
of  Christian  Dutchmen  have  been  the  masters  over  seven  gen- 
erations of  about  iifteen  millions  of  Mahometan  and  Pagan 
Malays,  Javanese,  and  other  races  of  the  Archipelago, — not  less 
than  one  hundred  millions  in  all ;  and  for  what  purpose?  To 
fill  the  coffers  of  stolid  men  of  Amsterdam  and  Rotterdam!" 

*  Visit  to  the  Philippine  Islands,  ch.  v.,  p.  94. 

\  Lord  Elgin's  Mission,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  49.  "  The  Dutch  merchants  have 
been  allowed  to  fatten  and  become  rich,  under  laws  and  restrictions  so  humili- 
ating that  the  contempt  of  the  Japanese  for  a  Hollander  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at."  Niphon  and  Pec?ieli,  by  E.  Barrington  de  Fonblanque,  p.  173. 

\  The  Tropical  World,  by  Dr.  G.  Hartwig,  ch.  xx.,  p.  228. 

§  Possessions  Neerlandaises  dans  I'lndeArchipelagique,  par  C.  J.  Temminck, 
tome  i.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  214  (1846). 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  363 

The  whole  fruit  of  their  conquests  in  the  East,  he  says,  is  this, 
"  that  after  two  hundred  years  the  natives  display  the  same 
ignorance  of  the  religion  which  their  masters  profess  to  be- 
lieve."* Even  literature  and  science  owe  them  but  little,  for 
as  the  learned  orientalist  Mohl  complained,  in  1844,  to  the 
Asiatic  Society  of  France,  "  We  are  still  using  the  Japanese 

frammars  and  dictionaries  published  two  centuries  ago  by  the 
esuits,  and  the  Dutch  do  nothing."!     And  now  let  us  see 
what  they  did  in  Ceylon. 

In  this  island,  as  in  Western  India,  the  Dutch  succeeded  the 
Portuguese,  from  whom  they  wrested  the  possessions  which 
they  were  themselves  destined  to  forfeit  in  turn  to  the  English. 
These  children  of  Calvin  found  their  new  territories  peopled 
by  Catholics.  "  The  island  of  Ceylon,"  says  Mr.  Irving,  with 
some  exaggeration,  "  is  said  to  have  been  so  completely  Roman 
Catholic  when  it  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Dutch,  that, 
unable  to  convert  the  natives  to  Calvinism,  they  took  measures 
to  promote  idolatry  .  .  They  are  said  to  have  sent  to  the  main- 
land for  priests  to  re-establish  Buddhism  !"^  But  this  singular 
policy,  with  which  these  ardent  Protestants  inaugurated  their 
reign  in  Ceylon,  need  not  surprise  us.  We  have  seen  even 
Anglicans,  both  lay  and  clerical,  confessing  that  they  prefer 
the  Hindoo  or  Chinese  idolater  to  the  disciples  of  St.  Francis, 
St.  Augustine,  and  St.  Paul.  Let  us  continue,  by  the  help  of 
Protestant  writers,  the  history  of  Dutch  Calvinism  in  Ceylon. 
"It  cannot  be  predicated  in  favor  of  the  Dutch,'-  says  Mr. 
Pridham,  whose  information  will  be  very  useful  to  us,  "  that 
they  entered  upon  the  task  of  propagating  the  Reformed  religion 
either  with  equal  ardor  or  from  similar  motives  to  the  Portu- 
guese." Mr.  Hugh  Murray  told  us  exactly  the  same  thing  of 
the  Bnglish  in  India,  and  we  shall  hear  it  again  in  future  chap- 
ters of  this  history.  But  the  Dutch,  finding  Buddhism  an 
impotent  ally  against  Catholics,  proceeded  to  try  the  plan 
which  has  cost  Protestant  missionaries  such  enormous  sums  in 
every  heathen  land.  They  could  not  convert  the  Cingalese  by 
argument,  but  they  might  perhaps  do  so  by  bribes.  "  The 
Dutch  went  about  the  business  coolly,"  says  Lord  Yalentia, 
"  and  held  forth  the  temptation  of  requiring  the  profession  of 
the  Protestant  faith  as  a  qualification  for  all  public  offices. "§ 
"  They  sought,"  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Christmas,  who  is  of  the 
school  of  Mr.  Pridham, — for  we  are  compelled  to  employ  wit- 
nesses of  this  class, — "  to  bribe  the  Cingalese  to  adopt  Dutch 

*  The  Prison  of  Wetevreden,  &c.,  by  Walter  M.  Gibson,  pp.  133,  446. 

f  Rapport,  10  Juillet,  1844,  p.  70. 

\  The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste,  ch.  v.,  p.  130. 

§  Travels,  vol.  i.,  cli.  vi.,  p.  201. 


364:  CHAPTER  IV. 

Presby  terianism  by  the  offer  of  places  and  situations."*  The  offer 
was  accepted,but  with  such  results  as  migh  t  have  been  an  ticipated. 
Thousands  of  Cingalese  became  Protestants,  without  ceasing  to  be 
Buddhists ;  and,  as  the  universal  hypocrisy  and  corruption  which 
such  conversions  generated  only  added  new  crimes  to  those 
which  were  indigenous  in  Ceylon,  Lord  Yalentia  remarks  truly, 
that  "  many  of  the  vices  of  the  Cingalese  seem  to  be  the  crea- 
'  tion  of  their  late  masters."  But  we  must  hear  other  witnesses. 

A  Dutch  Protestant,  who  visited  the  island  shortly  before  his 
countrymen  were  dispossessed  by  the  English,  gives  this  frank 
description  of  them  :  "  So  far  from  making  any  account  of  the 
Dutch,  the  inhabitants  of  Ceylon  treat  them  with  a  kind  of 
contempt ;  but  the  Dutch  have  the  prudence  to  overlook  such 
trifles,  minding  the  main  chance,  the  amity  of  the  King  of 
Candy,  that  he  may  not  take  it  into  his  head  to  break  with 
them,  which  would  be  a  very  sensible  wound  to  their  commerce 
in  this  charming  island."f 

A  Baptist  missionary,  who  notices  the  significant  fact,  that 
"the  Portuguese  left  most  people,  the  Dutch  most  buildings," 
thus  estimates,  in  1852,  the  results  of  their  missions.  "The 
Dutch  filled  their  territories  with  Christians  who  knew  nothing 
of  Christianity  except  the  name.  It  is  not  uncommon  even 
now  for  a  native  to  say,  in  the  same  breath,  that  he  is  a  good 
Christian  and  a  good  Buddhist.":): 

Dr.  John  Morrison,  the  historian  of  the  London  Missionary 
Society,  thus  describes  the  Dutch  Missions.  "  Of  these  missions 
it  is  difficult  to  speak  in  terms  of  high  commendation,  on 
account  of  the  loose  and  unscriptural  principles  on  which  they 
were  conducted.  Though  they  increased  to  a  large  extent  the 
nominal  territory  of  Christianity,  it  is  much  to  be  feared  that 
they  did  but  comparatively  little  towards  the  real  conversion 
of  the  heathen  world."  And  then  he  describes  their  method. 
"  All  that  was  required  by  the  Dutch  divines  of  a  Cingalese 
convert,  prior  to  baptism  and  admission  into  the  Christian 
Church,  was,  that  he  should  be  able  to  repeat  the  Lord's 
Prayer  and  the  Ten  Commandments ;"  announcing  at  the 
same  time,  "  that  no  native  should  rise  to  rank  in  the  army,  or 
be  admitted  to  any  employment  under  the  government,  unless 
he  professed  himself  a  member  of  the  Protestant  Church."  The 
Cingalese,  Dr.  Morrison  adds,  "pressed  into  the  communion  of 
so  profitable  a  faith."§  The  Dutch  no  longer  needed  to  stimu- 

*  The  Hand  of  God  in  India,  p.  111. 

f  A  Voyage  to  tJie  Island  of  Ceylon  in  1747,  by  a  Dutch  Gentleman,  p.  18, 
English  edition. 

i  Missionary  Tour  in  Ceylon  and  India,  by  Joshua  Russell,  ch.  ii.,  p.  11  (1852). 
§  Vol.  i,  p.  66. 


MISSIONS  IN   CEYLON.  365 

late  the  progress  of  Buddhism,  in  order  to  spite  the  Catholics ; 
it  was  enough  to  induce  a  Cingalese  to  profess  himself  a  Prot- 
estant, and  his  adhesion  to  Buddhism  was  effectually  secured. 
Calvinism  accepted  this  compromise,  and  by  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  "  the  Dutch  ministers  in  Ceylon  had 
baptized  three  hundred  thousand  of  the  inhabitants." 

It  is  true,  as  we  shall  see  immediately,  that  they  were  pre- 
cisely such  "  converts "  as  Protestantism  had  made  in  China 
and  India,  that  they  still  practised  all  the  rites  of  heathenism, 
and  were  a  scandal  even  to  their  own  countrymen  by  the  new 
vices  which  they  now  displayed.  But  still  these  nominal  con- 
versions continued  during  the  whole  period  of  the  Dutch 
occupation.  At  one  time  by  constraint  and  violence,  at  another 
by  an  organized  system  of  bribery,  of  which  the  details  were 
prescribed  by  legislative  enactment,  they  multiplied  the  disciples 
of  the  "reformed  religion."  And  the  masters  of  Ceylon  were 
content  with  a  process  which  produced  such  satisfactory  numer- 
ical results,  though  it  made  Christianity  a  by-word  among 
the  heathen,  an  object  of  hatred  to  those  who  affected  to  em- 
brace, and  of  scorn  to  those  who  openly  rejected  it.  u  The 
vices,  the  cupidity,  and  the  flagrant  immorality  of  the  Dutch 
administration,  as  well  as  of  their  private  conduct,"  says  M.  de 
Jancigny,  "tended  necessarily  to  cast  discredit  upon  their 
official  profession  of  faith."*  At  length  the  inevitable  hour 
of  their  downfall  arrived,  and  then  was  revealed,  to  their  con- 
fusion and  dishonor,  the  result  of  their  presence  in  Ceylon. 
But  that  result  is  too  curious  and  instructive,  as  well  as  too 
characteristic  of  the  real  influence  of  Protestant  missions  in 
pagan  lands,  to  be  dismissed  with  a  passing  allusion. 

The  Dutch  had  two  main  objects  during  their  occupation  of 
Ceylon,  both  of  which  they  pursued  with  a  keen  avidity  and  an 
unscrupulous  injustice  second  only  to  that  which  distinguished 
their  commercial  traffic;  the  first  was  to  force  the  natives  to 
become  Protestants,  the  second  to  crush  or  extirpate  the  Catho- 
lics. The  first  aim  was  partially  accomplished,  after  a  fashion 
which  shall  be  more  fully  described  presently ;  the  second 
utterly  failed.  But  we  must  take  the  history  of  that  failure 
from  Protestant  witnesses. 

Sir  Emerson  Tennent,  the  highest  authority  on  all  which 
concerns  the  island  of  Ceylon,  and  whose  well-known  work  is 
justly  commended  by  a  Protestant  minister  as  u  very  impartially 
drawn  up,"  writes  as  follows.  "  In  1748,  it  was  forbidden  to 
educate  a  Roman  Catholic  for  the  ministry,  but  within  three 
years  it  was  found  necessary  to  repeat  the  same  prohibition,  as 

*  Ceylon,  par  M.  de  Jancigny ;  V  Univers  Pittoresque,  tome  viii.,  p.  653. 


366  CHAPTER  IV. 

well  as  to  renew  the  proclamation  for  putting  down  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  Mass.  Notwithstanding  every  persecution,  however, 
the  Roman  Catholic  religion  retained  its  influence,  and  held 
good  its  position  in  Ceylon.  It  was  openly  professed  by  the 
immediate  descendants  of  the  Portuguese,  who  had  remained 
in  the  island  after  its  conquest  by  the  Dutch;  and  in  private  it 
was  equally  adhered  to  by  large  bodies  of  the  natives,  both 
Singhalese  and  Tamils,  whom  neither  corruption  nor  coercion 
could  induce  to  abjure  it."*  Yet  both  were  freely  used,  though 
with  no  other  result  than  to  show,  that  the  pastors  of  this 
persecuted  flock  were  worthy  of  their  vocation,  and  that  their 
courageous  disciples  were  not  unworthy  of  them.  "  The  Roman 
Catholic  priests  made  their  way  into  the  low  country,  visiting 
in  secret  their  scattered  flocks,  and  administering  the  sacraments 
in  defiance  of  \heplakaats  and  prohibitions  of  the  government." 
And  so  the  battle  went  on.  But  the  issue  of  such  a  conflict 
could  never  be  doubtful.  Sir  Emerson  Tennent  tells  us  what  it 
was.  Father  Joseph  Vaz,  to  give  only  a  simple  example,  "  in 
an  incredibly  short  space  of  time  added  to  the  Church  upwards 
of  thirty  thousand  converts  from  the  heathen."  In  vain  they 
bound  the  apostle  in  fetters,  martyred  his  disciples,  or  con- 
demned them  to  the  galleys  for  life.  In  vain  they  devised  those 
ingenious  cruelties  which  forced  even  a  Protestant  minister  to 
exclaim,  in  spite  of  his  hatred  of  their  Catholic  victims, — 
"Their  blind,  pharisaical  vindictiveness  can  only  be  cordially 
abhorred. "f  But  this  was  their  method  of  conversion,  and 
they  knew  no  other.  The  persecution  never  slacked;  "but 
the  proclamations  of  the  government,"  we  are  told,  "were 
either  too  late  to  be  eifectual,  or  too  tyrannical  to  be  carried 
into  force  ;  and  in  1717,  only  two  years  after  a  renewed  procla- 
mation, the  Roman  Catholics  were  in  possession  of  upwards  of 
four  hundred  churches  in  all  parts  of  Ceylon."  Still  the  Dutch 
pursued  their  policy  of  savage  repression.  They  had  already 
prohibited  all  education  to  Catholics,  and  now  they  forbade 
them,  under  terrible  penalties,  "  either  to  marry  or  bury  ;"  and 
finally,  as  it  was  possible  to  improve  still  further  this  too  lenient 
code,  "freedom  was  conferred  upon  the  children  of  all  slaves 
born  of  Protestant  parents,  whilst  those  of  Roman  Catholics 
were  condemned  to  perpetual  servitude.":): 

Such  are  the  counsels  which  the  Enemy  of  man  suggests  to 
the  agents  whom  he  employs  to  do  his  work.  But  they  come  to 
naught,  in  Ceylon  as  elsewhere ;  and  the  Protestant  historian 
of  Christianity  in  this  island  frankly  confesses,  that  they  only 

*  Christianity  in  Ceylon,  ch.  ii.,  p.  42. 

\  Romanism  in  Ceylon,  by  the  Rev.  Edward  J.  Robinson,  p.  17  (1855). 

i  Sir  E.  Tennent,  ch.  ii.,  p.  53. 


MISSION'S  IN   CEYLON.  367 

confirmed  "  the  rising  ascendency  of  the  Roman  Catholics, 
whose  numbers  had  actually  increased  under  persecution.  They 
had  churches  in  every  district,  from  Jaffna  to  Colombo  ;  and  in 
1734  they  extended  their  operations  to  the  southern  province, 
and  with  such,  success,  that  the  Presbyterian  clergy  of  Galle, 
distracted  by  the  impracticability  or  apostasy  of  the  natives, 
gave  way  before  this  accumulation  of  hostile  influences ;  from 
1745  the  district  was  left  for  some  years  altogether  without  the 
services  of  a  Protestant  minister."* 

It  is  very  satisfactory  to  have  a  Protestant  narrator  of  so 
remarkable  a  history  ;  but  he  has  more  to  tell  us.  All  the  penal 
laws,  futile  as  they  were  in  their  effects  upon  men  whose  faith 
made  them  invincible,  were  still  in  force.  The  government  still 
compelled  Catholic  parents,  wherever  they  were  within  reach  of 
the  iron  hand  of  the  jailer,  or  the  scourge  of  the  policeman,  to 
send  their  children  to  Protestant  schools.  By  1750,  however, 
the  native  Christians  had  become  strong  enough  to  protest 
openly  against  this  barbarous  tyranny,  and  they  publicly  pre- 
sented a  petition  to  the  authorities,  in  which  they  complained 
that  they  were  compelled  by  violence  "  to  send  their  families  to 
be  instructed  in  doctrines  which  they  rejected."  They  confessed 
that  if,  in  the  towns,  they  had  hitherto  submitted,  it  was  only 
from  fear  of  the  merciless  penalties ;  but  that  whenever,  by  a 
violence  which  they  could  not  resist,  their  children  had  been 
"  baptized  by  the  ministers  of  the  Reformed  Church,  they  were 
in  the  habit  of  having  the  same  children  baptized  a  second  time 
by  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  Rome."  The  "  Consistory  of 
Columbo,"  composed  of  Protestant  ministers,  urged  the  govern- 
ment peremptorily  to  reject  this  humble  prayer  of  Christian 
fathers  and  mothers,  who  presumed  to  have  a  care  for  the  souls 
of  their  little  ones.  They  went  still  further,  and  besought  the 
government  to  deny,  by  virtue  of  its  supreme  pontifical  autho- 
rity," the  validity  of  baptism  administered  by  a  Catholic  priest ;" 
and  to  declare  that  "  none  but  Protestant  headmen  should  be 
invested  with  authority  in  the  different  districts."  The  civil 
authorities  desired  nothing  better  than  to  comply  with  this 
demand,  but  there  was  a  difficulty  through  which  they  could 
not  see  their  way,  and  which  they  proposed  in  despair  to  the 
Protestant  ministers ;  they  would  gladly  appoint  only  "  Prot- 
estant headmen,"  they  said,  but  where  could  they  find  them  ? 
"  It  was  practically  impossible,"  the  government  sorrowfully 
replied,  "as  the  number  of  Protestant  converts  had  become  too 
scanty  to  afford  a  sufficient  field  for  selection. "f  The  "  Con- 
sistory of  Columbo"  had  asked  for  too  much. 

0  P.  58.  p-  61- 


368  CHAPTER   III. 

However,  "  the  prayer  of  the  Eoman  Catholics  was  rejected,'1 
and  it  was  not  until  the  Christian  natives  rose  in  insurrection — 
for  though  it  is  sometimes  a  duty  to  suffer  persecution  for  the 
faith,  it  is  sometimes  also  a  duty  to  resist  it — that  the  frightened 
government  gave  way.  The  enemy  was  already  knocking  at 
their  doors,  and  their  long  reign  of  cruelty  and  fraud  was  draw- 
ing to  a  close.  As  early  as  1756  the  English  had  made  them- 
selves masters  of  the  whole  coast  of  Ceylon,  and  in  1796  the 
colony  was  annexed  to  the  British  crown.  But  before  we  speak 
of  the  new  form  of  Protestantism  which  was  now  to  be  intro- 
duced, and  of  its  fortunes  in  Ceylon,  let  us  see  what  the  English 
conquest  revealed  as  to  the  final  results  of  Dutch  missionary 
operations  in  that  island.  They  boasted  that  they  had  induced 
multitudes  to  embrace  their  religion.  Let  us  inquire  how  far 
the  assertion  was  true. 

BaldaBiis,  the  most  celebrated,  and  apparently  the  most 
upright  of  the  Dutch  missionaries,  u  candidly  states,"  as  Sir 
Emerson  Tennent  remarks,  that  his  converts  were  only  "  Chris- 
tians in  name," — sine  Christo  Christiani. 

"  They  could  refute  the  Popish  errors  concerning  purgatory, 
the  mass,  &c.,"  says  this  Calvinist  missionary,  but  unfortu- 
nately their  religion  was  confined  to  such  negative  formulae ; 
for,  as  Baldseus  reluctantly  admits  a  few  pages  later,  "  though 
they  bear  the  name  of  Christians,  they  still  retain  many  of  their 
pagan  superstitions."*  And  his  testimony  is  the  more  valuable 
because  he  was  describing  the  fruits  of  his  own  labor.  He 
could  teach  them,  he  admits,  to  argue  against  some  of  the  most 
sacred  doctrines  of  Christianity,  but  he  could  never  persuade 
them  to  accept  even  those  meagre  and  distorted  fragments  of  it 
which  constituted  his  own  religion.  Like  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries in  India,  he  could  plunge  them  into  the  pit  of  atheism, 
but  all  his  efforts  could  never  draw  them  out  again. 

Yet  even  such  confessions  hardly  prepare  us  for  the  prodigious 
facts  which  are  unfolded  in  the  following  statement  of  the  Kev. 
Mr.  Palm :  "  Of  one  hundred  and  eighty-two  thousand  two 
hundred  and  twenty-six  natives  enrolled  as  Christians  at  Jaffna, 
but  sixty-four  were  members  of  the  Church," — he  means  the 
Protestant  Church ; — "  of  nine  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
twenty  at  Manaar,  only  five  were  communicants ;  and  in  the 
same  year  (1760)  at  Galle  and  Matura  there  were  only  thirty-six 
members,  out  of  eighty-nine  thousand  who  had  been  baptized  !"f 
It  appears,  therefore,  from  this  remarkable  statement,  that  out  of 
more  than  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  nominal  Christians, 

*  In  Churchill's  Collection  of  Voyages,  vol.  iii.,  p.  737. 
f  Tennent,  ch.  ii.,  p.  65. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  369 

who  had  all  received  baptism,  not  more  than  one  hundred  and 
five  were  regarded,  even  by  teachers  who  had  so  many  motives 
for  exaggerating  their  number,  as  Christians  in  any  sense  what- 
ever. 

But  even  this  is  not  all.  We  have  seen  that  thousands  of  the 
natives  of  Ceylon,  moved  partly  by  the  attraction  of  bribes  and 
partly  by  the  fear  of  persecution,  enrolled  themselves  as  Prot- 
estants, while  in  secret  they  continued  to  practice  their  own 
idolatries ;  but  there  is  still  a  fact  to  be  noticed,  of  which  the 
force  and  gravity  would  only  be  impaired  by  any  reflections 
which  we  could  offer.  While  in  health,  the  Buddhist  affected 
to  be  a  disciple  of  the  "  reformed  religion,"  and  even  assumed 
the  character  with  tolerable  success ;  but  when  sickness  or  peril 
overtook  him,  his  conscience,  upon  which  Protestantism  had 
failed  to  exert  even  the  faintest  influence,  began  to  reproach 
him,  and  he  hastened  to  appease  the  gods  whom  he  had  of- 
fended by  the  semblance  of  adhesion  to  a  worship  which  in 
secret  he  despised.  "A  large  proportion  of  these  nominal 
Christians,"  says  Sir  Emerson  Tennent,  and  the  statement  is  once 
more  repeated  even  by  Protestant  missionaries  in  1862,  "  have 
been  betrayed  into  apostasy  in  times  of  sickness  and  alarm." 

We  shall  see,  before  we  conclude  this  chapter,  what  manner 
of  men  the  Catholic  natives  have  proved,  and  how  they  have 
maifested  the  effects  of  true  conversion  ;  but  now  we  are  speak- 
ing of  those  whom  the  Dutch  admitted  into  the  ranks  of  Prot- 
estantism. "  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,"  says  a  writer  who  has 
been  already  quoted,  "  that  notwithstanding  the  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  Singhalese  who  were  enrolled  by  them  as  converts, 
the  religion  and  discipline  of  the  Dutch  Presbyterians  is  now 
almost  extinct  among  the  natives  of  Ceylon  !  Even  in  Jaffna, 
where  the  reception  of  those  doctrines  was  all  but  unanimous 
by  the  Tamils,  not  a  single  congregation  is  now  in  existence  of 
the  many  planted  by  Baldseus,  and  tended  by  the  labors  of 
Yalentyn  and  Schwartz."  The  religion,  he  adds,  and  here  we 
may  conclude  this  sketch  of  Dutch  missions  in  Ceylon,  "  has 
long  since  disappeared  almost  from  the  memory  of  the  natives 
of  Ceylon."* 

And  now  we  come  to  the  English  epoch,  and  to  the  mission- 
aries of  the  Established  Church  and  of  the  various  sects  which 
she  has  begotten. 

The  English  had  scarcely  begun  the  administration  of  their 
new  conquest  when  they  perceived,  with  that  infallible  good 
sense  which  rarely  deceives  them  when  their  interests  are  at 
stake,  and  which  enables  them  to  restrain  their  docile  bigotry 

*  Tennent,  ch.  ii.,  p.  71. 
25 


370  CHAPTER   IV. 

even  in  its  fiercest  mood,  that  Ceylon  would  not  be  worth  hold- 
ing on  Dutch  principles,  and  could  not  be  governed  by  Dutch 
maxims.  They  gave  religious  freedom  to  Canada,  as  Burke 
remarks,  because  they  feared  to  lose  it  ;*  they  refused  it  to 
Ireland,  because  she  was  within  arm's  reach.  In  Ceylon  they 
wished  to  pursue  their  commercial  operations  in  peace,  and  the 
Catholic  natives  had  shown  that  they  could  neither  be  bribed 
nor  terrified.  Still  there  was  a  momentary  conflict  between 
prudence  and  prejudice,  and  it  was  not  till  1806,  under  the 
government  of  Sir  Thomas  Maitland,  and  at  the  urgent  solicita- 
tions of  the  Chief  Justice,  Sir  Alexander  Johnston,  that  the  old 
persecuting  laws  were  finally  repealed,  and  religious  toleration 
proclaimed..  After  ten  years'  hesitation,  they  thought  it  best 
for  their  commercial  interests  to  leave  the  Catholics  alone. 

The  first  fact  which  occurs  in  the  history  of  the  English 
period  is  perhaps  the  most  curious  in  the  whole  chapter.  Ex- 
pecting, from  their  experience  of  the  past,  to  be  still  persecuted 
by  the  government,  the  Dutch  "converts"  now  lost  no  time  in 
announcing  themselves,  by  way  of  precaution,  as  English  Prot- 
estants, to  the  number  of  three  hundred  and  forty-two  thou- 
sand !  "  Mr.  Lambrick,  the  first  Church  of  England  missionary 
at  Cotta,  recounts  that  he  one  day  asked  a  native  of  Cotta  of 
what  religion  he  was,  and  the  answer  was,  Buddha's.  So 
then  you  are  not  a  Christian  ?  Oh,  yes,  to  be  sure  I  am  ;  I  am 
a  Christian,  and  of  the  Keformed  Dutch  religion  too."f  But 
as  soon  as  they  comprehended  that  the  Dutch  reign  was  over, 
they  transferred  their  allegiance  to  that  new  religion  which 
they  now  heard  of  for  the  first  time.  It  was  always  safe  to  be 
of  the  religion  of  their  masters.  When,  however,  they  ascer- 
tained, by  the  new  enactments,  that  they  were  "  no  longer  to 
be  paid  for  apostasy,"  and  that  "  a  monopoly  of  offices  and 
public  employment"  was  not  to  be  reserved  for  the  submissive 
professors  of  the  State  religion,  they  showed  at  last  their  real 
character  ;  and  then  was  enacted  onb  of  the  most  notable  scenes 
in  the  annals  of  Protestant  missions.  The  hour  of  freedom  had 
come  for  these  poor  Cingalese,  and  while  the  Catholic  natives 
steadfastly  adhered  in  this  new  era  of  tranquillity  to  the  faith 
which  they  had  professed  through  long  years  of  torment  and 
suffering,  the  so-called  Protestants  flung  away  with  joy  the 
hated  disguise,  and  the  Church  of  England  lost  her  three  hun- 
dred and  forty-two  thousand  members  before  she  had  even  time 
to  count  them.  "  Almost  with  greater  rapidity  than  their  num- 
bers had  originally  increased,  they  now  commenced  to  decline. 

*  "  Government  itself  lately  thought  fit  to  establish  the  Roman  Catholic  re- 
ligion in  Canada."     Works,  vol.  ix.,  p.  221. 
f  Tennent,  ch.  vi.,  p.  313. 


MISSIONS  IN  CEYLON.  371 

In  1802,  the  nominal  Protestant  Christians  amongst  the  Tamils 
of  Jaffna  were  one  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  ;  in  1806,  Bu- 
chanan, who  then  visited  Ceylon,  described  the  Protestant  reli- 
gion as  extinct"*  We  have  seen  that  at  the  same  moment  Dr. 
Claudius  Buchanan  described  the  Catholic  churches  of  Ceylon 
as  thronged  with  worshippers.  "  The  whole  district,"  he  says, 
speaking  of  Jaffna,  "is  now  in  the  hands  of  the  Romish  priests 
from  the  college  at  Goa."f  It  was,  no  doubt,  an  unwelcome 
fact,  but  he  was  obliged  to  confess,  "  they  have  assumed  quiet 
and  undisturbed  possession  of  the  land."  "What  then  had  be- 
come of  the  three  hundred  and  forty-two  thousand  Protestants? 
Sir  Emerson  Tennent  supplies  the  answer:  "Vast  numbers  had 
openly  joined  the  Roman  Catholic  communion,  to  which  they 
had  long  been  secretly  attached,  and  the  whole  district  was 
handed  over  to  the  priests  from  the  college  of  Goa."  In  the 
other  districts  the  defection  "  was  equally  deplorable,  and 
numbers  of  Protestants  were  every  year  apostatizing  to  Bud- 
dha." Finally,  "  within  a  very  few  years,  the  only  Christians 
who  were  to  he  found  in  the  peninsula  were  the  members  of  the 
Church  of  Eome^\ 

The  English  Protestants,  then, — for  we  have  heard  enough 
of  their  predecessors, — to  whom  the  Dutch  had  bequeathed  a 
doubtful  heritage,  which  had  already  vanished  when  they  put 
forth  their  hands  to  grasp  it,  did  not  gain  much  by  the  legacy. 
They  had  no  alternative  but  to  begin  the  work  anew,  and  this 
time  with  other  weapons,  and  by  a  different  process.  It  was 
too  late  for  persecution,  even  if  they  had  wished  to  try  that 
feeble  and  exploded  method  ;  and  moreover,  the  new  race  of 
preachers  was  more  humane  than  the  terrible  u  Consistory  of 
Columbo."  They  resigned  themselves,  therefore,  to  the  employ- 
ment of  milder  means.  At  first  the  Church  of  England,  by  an 
unusual  privilege,  had  the  field  all  to  herself;  but  wherever  she 
is,  the  unwelcome  forms  which  dog  her  steps  in  every  land,  the 
diros  fades  of  her  kinsfolk  and  rivals,  are  sure  to  appear  sooner 
or  later  in  their  accustomed  procession.  And  so,  before  many 
years  had  elapsed,  all  the  sects  which  we  have  seen  striving, 
with  feigned  words  of  amity,  to  trip  up  each  other  in  China  and 
India  for  the  instruction  and  amusement  of  the  heathen,  were 
gathered  together  in  Ceylon.  Each  had  its  own  partisans, 
whose  eager  sympathies  followed  it  across  the  sea,  and  who 

,  *  Tennent,  ch.  iii.,  p.  86. 

f  Christian  Researches  in  Asia,  p.  44. 

i  P.  86.  Captain  Knox,  who  was  four  years  a  prisoner  in  Ceylon,  noticed  of 
the  Catholic  natives,  that  their  religion  "  bred  in  them  a  kind  of  love  and 
affection  towards  strangers,  and  men  shall  hear  them  oftentimes  upbraiding 
the  highlanders  for  their  insolent  and  rude  behavior."  Captivity  in  Ceylon, 
ch.  ii.,  p.  159  (1818). 


372  CHAPTER  IV. 

never  ceased  to  transmit  to  it  from  their  remote  dwellings  the 
gold  without  which  it  would  have  refused  even  to  attempt  a 
task  in  which  gold  was  to  be  the  chief  agent.  The  Americans 
alone,  as  Lord  Torrington  has  told  us,  had  received  long  ago 
one  hundred  thousand  pounds,  and  they  have  received  a  good 
deal  more  since.  What  the  others  have  absorbed  we  need  not 
stay  to  calculate.  It  is  probable  that  in  this  one  island  Prot- 
estantism has  expended,  how  vainly  we  shall  hear  presently, 
as  much  as  would  suffice  to.  maintain  all  the  Catholic  missions 
throughout  the  earth  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  But  Protest- 
ant missions,  we  know,  are  expensive,  and  their  agents  would 
smile  with  pity  at  the  indecent  poverty  of  St.  Paul,  who  lived 
on  alms  and  had  apparently  only  one  cloak,  or  of  his  Catholic 
successors,  who  have  often  none  at  all. 

It  would,  however,  be  unreasonable  to  expect  that  respectable 
fathers  of  families,  having  complicated  social  duties  to  discharge, 
should  condescend  to  the  meagre  outlit  with  which  apostles  have 
braved  the  longest  voyage.  When  St.  Francis  was  preparing 
to  start  for  India,  St.  Ignatius  made  him  accept  a  waistcoat,  on 
discovering  that  he  did  not  possess  one  :  it  is  true  that  he  took 
off  his  own  to  supply  the  want.  Yet  St.  Ignatius,  unlike  the 
agents  of  English  or  American  religions,  who  seek  to  mend 
their  fortunes  by  assuming  the  title  of  "  missionaries,"  "  was  of 
a  race  so  noble  that  its  head  was  always  invited  to  do  homage 
by  a  special  writ,"*  even  in  the  proud  court  of  Spain.  The 
scantiness  of  apparel  which  such  men  accept  would  be  alto- 
gether incongruous  and  unseemly  if  proposed  to  missionaries 
of  the  modern  school.  It  is  their  own  friends  who  protest  most 
warmly  against  the  unjust  demand;  and  not  content  with  repu- 
diating on  their  behalf  all  claim  to  the  apostolic  character,  de- 
clare, with  almost  perplexing  frankness,  that  they  too  easily 
yield  to  the  seductions  of  covetousness  and  luxury '.  "  In  India 
I  supported  the  missionaries,"  said  Mr.  Leith  in  1853,  and  the 
House  of  Commons  printed  his  words  ;  "  but  I  say  that  they 
have  not  followed  the  Gospel.  Christ  said,  '  Leave  all  and 
follow  Me  ;'  they  say,  '  Take  all,  and  follow  Me.' "  The  state- 
ment is  harsh,  but  apparently  true,  and  not  less  true  in  Ceylon 
than  in  Hindostan.  An  historian  of  Protestant  missionary 
societies,  who  chronicles  with  impassioned  eulogy  all  their 
works,  thus  depicts  their  mode  of  life  in  Ceylon.  "A  poet's- 
imagination  could  scarcely  conceive  a  spot  more  suited  for  the 
residence  of  a  Christian  missionary."  Perhaps  you  conclude 
that  he  is  noting  the  facilities  which  its  position  offers  for  the 
conversion  of  the  neighboring  pagans  ?  He  has  no  such 

*  Eanke,  book  ii,  ch.  i.,  vol.  i.,  p.  121. 


MISSIONS  IN  CEYLON.  373 

thought ;  he  is  only  contemplating  with  wistful  admiration  the 
"  spacious  lawns"*  with  which  the  missionary  mansion  is 
adorned,  and  all  those  picturesque  and  attractive  appendages 
which  sometimes  provoke  the  surprise  of  the  heathen,  but 
rarely  their  respect.  Let  us  not  inquire,  however,  too  curiously 
into  the  domestic  life  which  is  deemed  an  appropriate  mode  of 
existence  for  a  Protestant  missionary,  in  Ceylon  as  elsewhere ; 
or  at  least  let  us  be  content  to  take  the  account  from  their  own 
associates,  who  know  more  about  it  than  we  do,  and  are  more 
impartial  witnesses. 

The  Rev.  Howard  Malcolm,  who  visited  Ceylon  among  other 
places,  and  was  deputed  by  the  American  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions  to  report  on  the  operations  of  his  missionary  brethren, 
fulfilled  this  part  of  his  inquisitorial  functions  in  these  words : 
"  Rulers  and  princes,  at  some  stations,  are  unable  to  live  as  the 
missionaries  do.  It  is  altogether  undesirable  to  see  carved 
mahogany  sofas  covered  with  crimson  silk,  engravings,  cut 
glass,  silver  forks,  &c.,  in  the  house  of  a  missionary  ;  the  house 
itself  resembling  our  handsome  country-seats !  .  .  .  .  Several 
missionaries  have  confessed  to  me  that,  on  their  first  arrival  in 
the  East,  they  were  shocked  at  the  style  in  which  they  found 
their  brethren  living.  Yet  they  had  been  carried  away  by  the 
.current.  And  so,  generally,  will  be  their  successors. "t  We 
comprehend,  therefore,  that  even  the  ample  largesses  of  the 
generous  subscribers  at  home,  profuse  and  abundant  as  they 
are,  are  not  superfluously  liberal.  Protestant  missions,  we 
have  already  observed,  are  expensive. 

But  other  witnesses,  less  reserved  than  Mr.  Malcolm,  and 
writing  for  the  public  rather  than  for  a  missionary  board,  are 
willing  to  introduce  us  into  the  interior  of  the  pleasant  "  country 
houses"  in  which  he  was  a  familiar  guest,  though  he  prudently 
leaves  his  readers  at  the  door.  These  unofficial  visitors  afford 
us  an  opportunity  of  contemplating  their  opulent  hosts  in  the 
tranquil  repose  of  their  daily  life.  The  scenes  which  they 
reveal  are  worth  noting.  "In  Persia,  China,  India,  every- 
where" says  one  who  dwelt  amongst  them  in  many  lands,  "  I 
found  them  living  quite  differently  from  what  I  had  imagined. 
They  live  quite  in  the  manner  of  opulent  gentlemen,  and  have 
handsome  houses  fitted  up  with  every  convenience  and  luxury. 
The  missionaries  repose  upon  swelling  divans, — their  wives 
preside  at  the  tea-table, — their  children  feast  on  sweetmeats  and 
confectionery;  in  short,  their  position  is  one  incomparably 
pleasanter  and  freer  from  care  than  that  of  most  other  people ; 


*  Smith's  History  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  vol.  ii.,  p.  641. 
f  Travels  in  S.  Eastern  Asia,  vol.  ii.,  p.  819. 


374  CHAPTER  IV. 

they  get  their  salaries  punctually  paid,  and  take  their  places 
very  easily." 

The  picture  is  too  instructive  not  to  merit  closer  examination. 
"In  places  where  several  missionaries  are  settled,  they  have 
what  are  called  'meetings,'  three  or  four  times  a  week,  sup- 
posed to  be  devoted  to  business,  but  which  are  little  else  than 
parties  at  which  their  wives  and  children  appear  in  tasteful 
dresses.  At  one  of  the  missionaries'  houses  the  meeting  will  be 
a  breakfast,  at  another  a  dinner,  at  a  third  a  tea-party ;  and 
you  will  see  several  equipages  and  servants  standing  in  the 
court-yard.  There  is,  indeed,  on  these  occasions,  some  little 
talk  of  business,  and  the  gentlemen  remain  together  perhaps 
half  an  hour  discussing  it ;  but  the  rest  of  the  time  is  passed  in 
mere  social  amusement."*  It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that,  by 
the  alms  of  worthy  persons  who  suppose  they  are  assisting  to 
convert  the  heathen,  the  revenues  of  the  missionary  societies 
steadily  increase.  They  have  evidently  need  of  all  their  wealth. 
Let  their  subscribers,  however,  only  continue  faithful,  and  there 
is  no  danger  lest  the  peaceful  enjoyments  of  their  agents  should 
be  curtailed,  or  their  pleasant  career  compromised. f 

It  is  true  that  among  the  multitude  of  so-called  missionaries, 
who  owe  to  the  imprudent  generosity  of  their  English  or 
American  co-religionists  the  luxuries  which  they  would  never 
have  tasted  at  home,  some  few  are  found  of  a  different  order. 
They  may  appreciate  as  keenly  as  the  rest  the  enjoyment  of  ease 
and  opulence,  of  "  mahogany  sofas,"  and  "  silver  forks,"  but 
they  have  at  least  occasional  aspirations  after  better  things. 
Their  zeal  may  be  as  unprofitable,  and  their  piety  as  eccentric, 
but  they  do  not  consume  their  time  wholly  in  "  mere  social 
amusement."  Yet'  it  may  be  doubted  whether  their  religion 
does  not  present  a  still  more  repulsive  picture  than  the  osten- 
tatious worldliness  of  their  companions. 

Mrs.  Win  slow,  the  wife  of  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  of 
their  number,  and  herself  "  a  distinguished  female  missionary," 
gives  us  this  account  of  the  class  referred  to :  "  Yesterday,  at 
this  station,  Mr.  Winslow  had  scarcely  begun  his  sermon,  when 
it  was  evident  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  near.  He  had  some 
overwhelming  views,  which  for  a  time  rendered  him  unable  to 

*  Ida  Pfeiffer,  Voyage  Bound  tJie  World,  pp.  221-2.  $  • 

f  There  does  not  appear  to  be  the  least  danger  of  either.  "  Rumors  some- 
times reach  us,"  says  the  Secretary  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  in  18G2, 
"  of  comfortable  dwellings,  and  conveniences  of  life  enjoyed  by  missionaries 
abroad.  Your  Committee  are  not  careful  to  answer  such  charges.  They  know  the 
temper  of  their  men,  and  that,  when  called  upon  to '  endure  hardness,'  they  will 
not  be  found  wanting.  To  God  be  all  the  praise !"  And  then  they  "  rejoice  to  see 
the  plummet  in  the  hand  of  our  Zerubbabel,"  and  so  bring  their  report  to  an  end. 
P.  230.  The  agents  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society  are  evidently  in  no  danger. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  375 

speak.  It  was  a  solemn  place."  And  this  was  nothing  un- 
usual. "  At  Batticotta,  in  the  afternoon,  the  Holy  Spirit  came 
down  with  power,  and  filled  all  the  house  where  we  were  sit- 
ting. The  brother  who  first  led  in  prayer  was  so  much  over- 
come as  to  be  unable  to  proceed.  It  was  not  common  prayer, 
but  wrestling  with  the  Angel  of  the  Covenant,  with  strong  cry- 
ing and  tears.  Every  thing  was  awfully  solemn,  such  as  language 
cannot  describe.  We  came  home  exceedingly  exhausted."* 

The  Rev.  D.  Hallock,  this  lady's  biographer,  has  recorded 
other  examples  of  the  same  kind  of  spirituality.  A  little  child, 
a  son  of  Mrs.  Winslow,  was  supposed  to  have  indulged  in  pre- 
varication,— perhaps  about  its  portion  of  "  sweatmeats  and 
confectionery."  It  was  not  by  any  means  certain;  but  Dr. 
Hallock  says,  "  she  thought  he  told  her  a  lie."  TJpon  this, 
Mrs.  Winslow,  with  an  eye  to  the  religious  public  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean,  and  perhaps  also  to  the  somewhat  exacting 
"  directors"  at  home,  takes  her  pen,  and  writes  as  follows  in 
her  official  journal :  "  I  before  knew  that  he  was  a  sinner,  but 
now  it  was  a  reality.  That  I  had  borne  a  child  who  was  an 
enemy  to  God,  a  rebel,  an  heir  of  hell,  was  humbling,  over- 
whelming. Immediately  I  resolved  to  give  the  Lord  no  rest 
until  this  brand  should  be  plucked  from  the  burning." 

If  we  compare  this  type  with  the  more  numerous  class  who 
are  content  to  live  in  the  manner  of  opulent  gentlemen,  and 
who  affect  no  higher  degree  of  piety  than  their  mode  of  life  will 
conveniently  support,  we  shall  perhaps  find  it  difficult  to  decide 
which  has  the  least  title  to  our  esteem.  Even  cupidity  and 
effeminacy  are  hardly  more  distasteful  to  a  Christian  than  the 
dull  fanaticism  which  confounds  the  frailty  of  a  child  with  the 
deliberate  malice  of  a  sinner,  and  the  vanity  which  mistakes 
its  own  babblings  for  the  utterances  of  the  Holy. Spirit. 

But  it  is  time  to  inquire  what  they  have  actually  accomplished 
towards  the  conversion  of  Ceylon.  They  will  tell  us  themselves. 
They  do  not  always  conceal  the  truth,  seldom,  except  under 
compulsion,  or  when  writing  to  their  official  employers,  who 
would  promptly  resent  all  superfluous  and  unprofitable  candor 
as  a  perfectly  useless  indiscretion ;  and  so,  in  their  moments  of 
frankness,  they  thus  describe  the  character  of  their  converts,  and 
the  manner  in  which  they  are  recruited.  "  I  have  reason  to 
believe,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Percival,  in  1854,  "  that  converts 
have,  in  some  cases,  been  again  and  again  baptized  by  the  same 
minister,  being  presented  by  a  mercenary  catechist  on  special 
days,  to  swell  the  number  of  candidates,  and  induce  the  belief 


*  Biographical  and  Historical  Sketches  of  Distinguished  American  Mission- 
aries, edited  by  H.  W.  Pierson,  A.M. ;  pp.  147-150  (1852). 


376  CHAPTER   IV. 

that  the  work  of  conversion  was  steadily  advancing."  And 
then  he  explains  the  secret  motive  of  these  ingenious  catechists. 
"  One  so  zealous  and  successful  could  not  but  be  well  reported, 
and  eventually  as  certainly  benefited  by  promotion."* 

The  annalist  of  Protestant  attempts  to  convert  the  heathen, 
though  anxious  to  exaggerate  their  success,  writes  as  follows  of 
their  result  in  Ceylon.  "  This  mission  has  now  been  carried  on 
for  between  thirty  and  forty  years  with  much  fewer  trials  and 
hindrances  than  most  of  the  society's  missions,  yet  its  progress 
has  been  small  as  regards  its  great  and  primray  object,  the  con- 
version of  souls  to  Christ.  Perhaps  an  utter  indifference  to  all 
spiritual  religion,  rather  than  hypocrisy,  describes  the  state  of 
heart  of  most  of  the  nominal  converts."f  And  this  account  is 
confirmed,  with  graphic  brevity,  by  another  Protestant  histo- 
rian of  missions  in  Ceylon.  "  Heathens,  Mahometans,  and  Ro- 
man Catholics,"  says  Dr.  Smith,  who  always  ranks  these  three 
classes  together,  as  identical  in  their  spiritual  state,  "  were  all 
bigoted  to  their  respective  systems  ;  the  greater  part  of  the  Prot- 
estants  were  perfectly  indifferent  about  the  religion  which  they 
professed."^:  And  presently  he  declares  of  the  Protestant  con- 
verts, "  They  are  Buddhists  in  belief,  but  politically  Christians." 

Heber,  who  visited  Ceylon  officially,  had  long  before  re- 
marked in  his  mild  phrase,  "There  is  among  the  Cingalese  and 
Tamul  population  a  very  large  amount  of  nominal  Christians  ;"§ 
but  it  was  reserved  for  later  travellers  to  reveal  their  true  char- 
acter. The  English,  we  shall  see,  were  destined  to  be,  if  possi- 
ble, even  less  successful  than  the  Dutch,  though  they  imitated 
their  policy  so  far  as  to  hold  out  temporal  rewards  as  an  incen- 
tive to  conversion.  The  Rev.  George  Bissett,  the  secretary  of 
the  "  Columbo  Auxiliary  Bible  Society,"  reported  with  satisfac- 
tion to  the  parent  society, — "  far  from  any  disgrace  attaching  to 
those  who  are  converted  to  Christianity,"  as  in  India,  "  their 
private  reputation  is  increased,  and  their  political  capacity 
enlarged ;  new  situations  of  rank  and  emolument  are  brought 
within  their  reach,  and  the  native  Christian  may  aspire  to  a 
promotion  from  which  the  heathen,  under  this  government,  has 
been  long  excluded."!  The  Cingalese,  however,  declined  to 
embrace  Anglican  Protestantism  even  on  these  favorable  terms. 
The  proffered  liberalities  of  the  English  were  still  less  persuasive 
than  the  brutal  menaces  of  the  Dutch,  except  in  the  case  of 
famished  and  degraded  outcasts,  who  now  compose  the  Protest- 

*  The  Land  of  the  Veda,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  406. 

•[  Hist,  of  Prop,  of  Christianity,  vol.  p.  365. 

i  Hist,  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  vol.  ii.,  p.  479. 

§  Indian  Journal,  vol.  ii.,  p.  246. 

|  Owen's  History  of  the  B.  and  F.  Bible  Society,  vol.  ii.,  p.  272. 


MISSIONS  IN   CEYLON.  377 

ant  congregations  of  Ceylon,  and  who  are  thus  described  even 
by  their  masters  and  teachers. 

"  The  greater  part  of  the  Cingalese  whom  I  designate 
nominal  Christians  of  the  reformed  religion,"  says  Mr.  Har- 
vard, a  Wesleyan  missionary,  "  are  little  more  than  Christians 
by  baptism.  They  have  no  objection  to  the  Christian  religion," 
aiid  so  they  baptized  them,  "  but  for  their  amusement  are  apt 
to  attend  the  Buddhist  festivals.  Numbers  of  them  make  no 
difficulty  in  asserting  that  they  are  both  Buddhists  and  Chris- 
tians"* 

But  they  are  not  always  so  candid.  Sometimes  they  think 
it  more  prudent  to  be  Protestants  in  public,  and  Buddhists  only 
in  private.  "Amongst  those  who  profess  Christianity,"  says 
Colonel  Forbes,  "  considerable  pains  are  taken  to  conceal  the 
unhallowed  rites  which  they  secretly  practise."!  "  I  consider 
the  return  officially  made  to  the  government  altogether  ridicu- 
lous," says  Colonel  Campbell,  speaking  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land missionaries,  "  but  the  Cingalese  have  shown  great  readi- 
ness to  assist  these  reverend  gentlemen  in  building  their 
houses."  And  then  he  gives  a  particular  instance :  "  The 
village  where  these  gentlemen  reside  contained  one  thousand 
six  hundred  and  forty-four  nominal  Christians,  but  the  greater 

part  of  them  were  Christians  in  name  only most  of  them 

continue  to  worship  devoutly,  or  rather  to  fear,  the  host  of 
devils  they  firmly  believe  in.";}:  "A  converted  Buddhist,"  says 
another  British  officer,  "will  address  his  prayers  to  our  God, 
if  he  thinks  he  can  obtain  any  temporal  benefit  by  so  doing ; 
but  if  not,  he  would  be  just  as  likely  to  pray  to  Buddha,  or  to 
the  devil."§  "  Nominal  Christians  often  join  in  idolatrous 
devotional  exercises,"  says  another  Protestant  official,  "with 
apparently  as  much  zeal  as  the  professed  Buddhist."  ||  Mr.  Sul- 
livan, a  capable  and  impartial  witness,  notices  the  still  more 
singular  fact,  that  they  will  pass  in  the  same  hour  from  the 
Protestant  service  to  the  abominations  of  their  own  idolatry,  so 
little  impression  has  the  former  produced  upon  them.  "  The 
Cingalese,"  he  says,  from  his  own  observation,  "  will  attend 
chapel,  listen  with  attention,  and  apparently  assent  with  under- 
standing, but  he  will  go  from  chapel  to  his  idol,  from  the  preach- 
ing of  Christianity  to  the  abominations  of  his  degrading  profes- 
sion, without  the  slightest  trace  of  change  effected  P'T  "  It  is  a 

*  Narrative,  &c.,  introd.,  p.  61. 
Recent  Disturbances  in  Ceylon,  p.  39  (1850). 
Excursions  in  Ceylon,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  121. 
Baker's  Rifle  in  Ceylon,  p.  85. 

Ceylon  ;  an  Historical  Sketch,  by  Henry  Marshall,  F.R.S.E.,  &c.,  p.  236. 
A  Visit  to  Ceylon,  by  Edward  Sullivan,  ch.  vii.,  p.  75. 


378  CHAPTER   IV. 

subject  of  general  regret  to  the  missions,"  says  Mr.  Bennett,  an 
enthusiastic  advocate  of  the  missionaries,  u  that,  although  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  a  nominally  Christian  popula- 
tion, scarcely  one  native  family  out  of  a  hundred,  unless  imme- 
diately connected  with  them,  abstains,  on  religious  principle, 
from  the  ceremonies  and  practice  of  devil-worship."*  And  all 
these  witnesses,  who  thus  disclose  the  incurable  impotence  of 
Protestantism,  are  themselves  enthusiastic  Protestants.  Let  us 
turn  from  these  official  writers  to  the  missionaries  themselves, 
who  thus  confirm  their  unwelcome  evidence. 

The  Rev.  James  Selkirk,  a  Church  of  England  missionary, 
reports  of  his  colleague  Mr.  Browning,  that  u  the  multiplicity 
of  his  labors,  and  the  little  success  he  met  with,  were  such  as 

freatly  to  depress  Mr.  B.'s  mind."  But  Mr.  B.  and  his  friends 
ad  other  vexations.  "We  are  constantly  pained,"  adds  Mr. 
Selkirk,  "to  behold  vast  numbers  infatuated  by  the  mummeries 
of  Popery. "f  It  was,  no  doubt,  trying,  but  the  contrast  might 
have  suggested  other  emotions  than  empty  regret  or  restless 
mortification. 

"  The  Church  of  Rome,  here  as  elsewhere,"  observes  Sir 
George  Barrow,  "  sweeps  into  its  fold  all  it  can  get." J  Appar- 
ently the  Church  of  England  tried  to  do  the  same,  and  no  one 
blames  the  attempt ;  but  why  should  it  be  laudable  when  it 
failed,  and  criminal  only  when  it  succeeded?  "The  Roman 
Catholic  priests,"  says  Captain  Percival,  "  with  their  usual  in- 
dustry, have  taken  advantage  of  the  current  superstitions  to 
forward  the  propagation  of  their  own  tenets. "§  He  does  not 
explain  his  meaning,  nor  need  we  attempt  the  unprofitable 
task ;  but  he  also  is  very  angry  at  the  "  vast  numbers"  of  their 
converts,  whose  real  character  and  manner  of  life  other  Prot- 
estant witnesses,  quite  as  prejudiced  as  Sir  George  Barrow  and 
Captain  Percival,  but  somewhat  more  candid,  will  describe  to 
us  presently.  Meanwhile,  let  us  hear  Mr.  Selkirk  again. 

"  Very  few  of  the  heathen,"  he  says,  "i.  e.,  native  Kandyans, 
could  be  induced  to  come  to  hear  the  wrord  preached,  or,  if 
they  came  for  a  short  time,  to  be  regular  in  their  attendance." 
This  was  in  1826  ;  let  us  see  if  things  improved  as  time  went 
on.  In  1827,  "there  were  several  things  to  discourage.  Some 
of  those  who  were  communicants  were  seldom  at  church,  except 
on  that  particular  Sunday  on  which  the  Lord's  Supper  was 
administered," — which  was  probably  very  rarely.  But  they  did 

*  Ceylon  and  its  Capabilities,  by  J.  W.  Bennett,  Esq.,  F.L.S.,  late  Ceylon 
Civil  Establishment,  ch.  vii.,  p.  61. 

f  Recollections  of  Ceylon,  by  the  Rev.  James  Selkirk,  ch.  vii.,  p.  201. 
t  Ceylon,  Past  and  Present,  by  Sir  George  Barrow,  ch.  vii.,  p.  168  (1857). 
§  Account  of  the  Island  of  Ceylon,  ch.  ix.,  p.  226. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  379 

not  always  come  even  then.  "  On  one  occasion  there  was  not 
one  of  the  communicants  present,  though  notice  had  been 
regularly  given  the  Sunday  previous."  And  these  were  the 
flower  of  their  converts. 

Years  pass  by,  and  still  no  improvement  is  recorded.  "  The 
Buddhists,"  Mr.  Selkirk  sadly  relates,  "  remain  prejudiced  and 
bigoted  to  their  own  system  of  error.  The  Roman  Catholics 
continue  steadfast  in  their  perversions  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
adherence  to  vain  superstitions  ;  and  the  majority  of  Protestant 
Christians,  both  European  and  native,  are  lamentably  indiffer- 
ent to  vital  godliness."*  Is  it  possible  to  avow  more  candidly 
that  Protestantism  is  the  least  influential  form  of  religion  known 
amongst  men  ? 

In  1830,  "  the  state  of  things  had  not  much  altered  for  the 
better."  In  1835,  for  we  need  not  give  the  whole  dismal 
history  year  by  year,  "  out  of  flve  hundred  and  eighty  souls, 
in  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  families," — this  was  a  Church 
of  England  mission, — "  eighty  children  were  unbaptized,  and 
in  between  thirty  and  forty  families,  the  parents  were  living 
together  unmarried.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  whole 
visited  are  utterly  careless,  and  live  as  if  they  had  no  souls,  and 
act  as  if  they  believed  with  their  heathen  neighbors  that  there 
was  no  God."f  Yet  these  were  the  "  converts,"  who  furnished 
the  materials  for  "  annual  reports,"  and  whose  instruction  and 
maintenance  costs  England  every  year  a  king's  ransom. 

Again;  of  the  "nominally  Protestant  Christian  population  of 
the  southern  and  middle  parts  of  Ceylon,"  he  says,  "the  worship 
of  the  devil  is  still  practised  among  them.";): 

Once  more ;  if  any  one  doubts  the  accuracy  ot  Colonel 
Campbell's  frank  statement  that  "  the  return  officially  made 
to  the  government  is  altogether  ridiculous,"  let  him  weigh 
the  following  really  horrible  account  of  the  same  Protestant 
missionary.  "  The  government  native  preachers,  called  Propo- 
nents, have  sometimes  baptized  two  or  three  hundred  infants 
and  elder  children  at  a  time."  They  are  paid,  it  seems,  in 
proportion  to  the  number,  and  therefore  lay  hold  of  all  they 
can  catch,  employing  as  "  sponsors"  any  one,  pagan  or  not,  who 
may  be  passing  by ;  while  these  official  baptists,  who  save  the 
missionaries  much  labor,  are  themselves,  says  Mr.  Selkirk, 

*  Recollections,  &c.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  204. 

+  P.  217. 

|  A  Wesleyan  minister  makes  the  following  singular  report  on  a  mission  of 
his  community  at  Dondra :  "  We  conversed  at  length  upon  the  state  of  the 
mission,  and  found  that  it  had  been  injured  by  extreme  jealousy  of  demon- 
worship  on  the  part  of  one  of  our  agents."  We  cannot  suppose  that  he  cen- 
sured the  jealousy,  nor  understand  how  it  could  be  "extreme."  Australia, 
with  Notes  by  the  Way ;  by  F.  Jobson,  D.D.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  73  (1862). 


380  CHAPTER  IV. 

"persons  as  ignorant  of  Christianity  as  if  there  were  no  such 
religion  in  the  world,  and  who  perhaps  have  never  been  bap- 
tized themselves."  And  then,  as  if  this  deplorable  caricature  of 
Christian  missions  were  not  sufficiently  complete,  he  adds  this 
frightful  fact :  "Indeed,  almost  all  the  Buddhist  priests  in  the 
maritime  provinces  are  persons  who  have  been  baptized  in  their 
infancy"* 

It  appears,  moreover,  that  not  only  have  multitudes  of  Bud- 
dhist priests  received  Protestant  baptism,  and  therefore  been 
celebrated  as  converts  at  English  missionary  meetings,  but 
that  others,  who  have  not  enjoyed  the  same  advantage,  are 
fully  recompensed  by  more  appreciable  benefits.  "  The  govern- 
ment," says  Mr.  Bennett,  in  1843,  "allows  a  monthly  stipend 
to  forty-two  Buddhist  priests."f  And  twelve  years  after,  Mr. 
Baker  is  still  able  to  notice  the  same  amazing  facts.  "  In 
Ceylon,"  he  tells  us,  "  we  see  a  protection  granted  to  the 
Buddhist  religion,  while  flocks  of  missionaries  are  sent  out  to 
convert  the  heathen  !  We  even  stretch  the  point  so  far  as  to 
place  a  British  sentinel  on  guard  at  the  Buddhist  temple  in 
Kandy,  as  though  in  mockery  of  our  Protestant  church  a  hun- 
dred paces  distant.":): 

And  these  have  been  the  only  results,  beyond  the  luxurious 
maintenance  of  a  vast  number  of  missionaries  and  their  families, 
of  all  the  Church  of  England  and  other  Protestant  missions  in 
Ceylon,  up  to  the  present  hour.  In  1849,  Mr.  Pridham,  who, 
it  will  be  remembered,  prefers  Buddhism  to  the  Catholic  faith, 
gives  this  report :  "  The  results  of  the  Church  of  England 
mission  have  been  almost  entirely  of  a  negative  character. 
Christianity  itself  has  made  but  lee-way"§  And  this  eternal 
sterility,  which  marks  all  the  operations  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, not  only  in  Ceylon,  but  in  every  other  land,  is  still  more 
significant  when  we  consider  that  her  missionaries,  some  of 
whom  are  of  course  educated  and  zealous  men,  have  in  several 
cases  convinced  the  Buddhists  of  the  irrational  folly  of  their 
religious  tenets.  "Its  ministers,"  as  Mr.  Pridham  observes, 
"  have  succeeded  in  sweeping  away  a  vast  mass  of  the  preju- 
dices which  formerly  confronted  them."  Yet  they  can  only 
succeed  in  making  them  infidels,  never  in  making  them  Chris- 
tians. They  persuade  them  sometimes  to  reject  the  religion  of 
Buddha,  but  cannot  induce  them  to  accept  their  own  in  its 
place.  They  can  destroy,  here  as  elsewhere,  but  have  not  yet 
learned  how  to  build  up. 

*  P.  515. 

f  Ceylon  and  its  Capabilities,  ch.  li.,  p.  415. 

I  Eight  Years'  Wanderings  in  Ceylon,  ch.  xi.,  p.  352  (1855). 

§  Ceylon,  &c.,  p.  441. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  381 

It  is  so  great  an  advantage  to  be  assisted  to  a  knowledge  of 
these  instructive  facts  by  such  a  witness  as  Mr.  Pridham, — just 
as  in  our  inquiry  about  India  we  received  so  much  valuable  aid 
from  Mr.  Kaye, — that  we  will  refer  to  him  once  more.  We 
have  heard  Protestant  missionaries  denouncing  with  consider- 
able energy  their  own  converts  in  Ceylon,  but  it  appears  that 
the  day  arrived  when  they  were  inclined  to  retract  their  former 
censures,  riot  as  unjust,  but  as  weak  and  insufficient.  "A 
minute  and  careful  examination  of  the  native  converts  gener- 
ally," says  Mr.  Pridham,  "has  led  even  the  missionaries  to 
form  a  less  favorable  opinion  as  to  their  sincerity  than  they 
formerly  entertained."*  And  the  Rev.  Mr.  Tupper  confirms 
this  gloomy  conclusion  in  1856,  w^hen  he  says,  that  "  all  accounts 
agree  in  reporting  unfavorably  of  the  state  of  Christianity 
among  them.  Every  one  whom  I  asked  said  it  was  generally 
a  hollow  profession."t  The}^  did  not  say  so  in  writing  home 
to  their  employers,  who  would  have  refused  to  receive  such 
imprudent  confessions,  but  they  relieved  their  minds  by  saying 
it  to  everybody  else.  Mr.  Tupper  considers,  however,  that  in 
spite  of  the  unvarying  experience  of  the  last  sixty  years,  and 
the  possession  of  every  temporal  and  political  advantage,  they 
are  not  without  motives  "to  encourage  missionary  work,"  a 
conclusion  which  we  shall  presently  see  additional  reasons  for 
declining  to  adopt. 

In  the  same  year,  1856,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hawks,  who  examined 
all  the  facts  on  the  spot  with  a  candor  not  unusual  in  Ameri- 
cans, says,  "There  are  missionaries  of  various  sects  engaged  in 
efforts  to  evangelize  the  native  heathen,  but  with  what  success 
did  not  appear  ."$ 

And  this  is  the  language  of  every  Protestant  writer,  except  a 
few  of  that  class  who,  in  the  words  of  an  impartial  witness, 
"  become  missionaries  from  interested  motives,  and  whose  re- 
lations of  conversions  and  victories  in  the  spiritual  warfare  are, 
to  any  one  who  has  visited  the  scene  of  their  exertions,  as  un- 
founded as  they  are  mischievous."§  Mr.  Baker  also,  than 
whom  no  traveller  has  enjoyed  better  opportunities  of  judging, 
honestly  admits,  in  1855,  after  more  than  half  a  century  of 
missionary  exertion,  "  the  stationary,  if  not  retrograde,  position 
of  the  Protestant  Church  among  the  heathen  ;"  and  eloquently 
laments  that  England  should  have  ruled  so  completely  in  vain 
over  "  the  conquered  nations  (of  the  East),  wTho  have  been  sub- 

*P.  442. 

f  Out  and  Home,  by  the  Rev.  W.  G.  Tupper,  M.A.,  p.  128. 
\  American  Expedition  under  Commodore  Perry,  by  Francis  L.  Hawks,  D.D., 
ch.  iii.,  p.  120. 
§  Sullivan,  ch.  vii.,  p.  75. 


CHAPTER  IV.        t 

ject  to  her  for  half  a  century,  but  know  neither  her  language 
nor  her  religion."* 

In  1857,  for  lapse  of  time  brings  no  change,  Mr.  Binning,  a 
vehement  Protestant,  repeats  once  more  that  "  Christianity  has, 
as  yet,  gained  but  little  footing  among  the  natives  of  this 
island,"  and  that  "the  work  of  evangelization  seems  to  be 
scarce  begun,"f  after  the  toils  of  half  a  century !  Mr.  Sullivan 
also  declares,  from  his  own  experience  and  observation,  "  sup- 
ported by  the  testimony  and  opinion  of  unprejudiced  persons, 
whose  long  residence  amongst  them  has  made  them  acquainted 
with  all  their  habits,  that  scarcely  one  real  convert,  whose  be- 
lief is  sincere  and  lasting,  annually  rewards  the  labors  of  the 
hundreds  who  are  engaged  in  the  spiritual  warfare."  And  this 
fact  he  proclaims  because,  he  says,  "it  is  the  duty  of  travellers 
to  offer  the  fruits  of  their  experience,  and  to  expose  the  almost 
utter  uselessness  of  a  system  that  ....  squanders  sums  which, 
if  expended  at  home,  would  bring  to  perfection  fruit  that  has 
been  implanted  in  a  good  soil,  "if 

In  1858,  an  Anglican  missionary  in  Jaffna  says,  "In  looking 
at  the  present  state  of  the  people,  they  seem  very  careless  and 
depraved ;"  but  he  consoles  himself  with  the  reflection  that 
"when  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  be  poured  out" — great 
things  may  be  expected.§ 

Perhaps  all  further  evidence  of  the  character  and  results  of 
Protestant  missions  in  Ceylon  may  be  deemed  superfluous,  but 
we  must  not  conclude  without  quoting  the  testimony  of  BO 
capable  and  impartial  an  authority  as  Sir  Emerson  Tennent. 
All  his  sympathies  were  with  the  men  whose  failure  he  thus 
describes.  "  The  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  are  indefati- 
gable in  their  labors  amongst  the  heathen ;  but  although  the 
section  of  the  peninsula  which  is  occupied  by  their  mission  con- 
tains a  dense  population  of  upwards  of  thirty  thousand  Tamils, 
the  number  who  ordinarily  attend  their  ministrations  seldom 
exceeds  an  average  of  twenty  individuals. "\  And  this  is  con- 
firmed by  a  writer,  formerly  an  Anglican  missionary  in  Ceylon, 
who  repeats,  in  1848,  the  statement  of  another  Anglican  clergy- 
man, "  a  man  of  great  uprightness  and  untiring  zeal  in  his 
work,"  who  declared  in  his  presence,  "  I  do  not  believe  that 
there  are  six  real  converts  in  the  whole  island. "Tf 

The  Americans   also,  by  far  the  most   energetic  in  their 


Tears,  &c.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  351. 

Two  Tears'  Trawl  in  Persia,  Ceylon,  &c.,  by  Robert  B.  M.  Binning,  Esq., 
vol.  L,  ch.  vii.,  p.  101. 
|  A  Visit,  &c.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  76. 

§  Proceedings  of  the  South  India  Missionary  Conference,  p.  62. 
IChi-istianity  in  Ceylon,  ch.  iv.,  p.  168. 
1  Dublin  Review,  vol.  xxv.,  p.  104  (1848). 


MISSIONS  IN  CEYLON.  383 

methods  of  operation,  confess,  that  after  all  their  enormous  ex- 
penditure, and  "  after  thirty  years  of  toil  and  devotion,  they 
have  enumerated  not  more  than  six  hundred  and  eighty  nominal 
converts,  who  have  been,  at  one  time  or  other,  received  into 
communion  with  their  churches ;  and  the  number  now  in  con- 
nection with  them  is  but  three  hundred  and  fifty -seven  !"  This 
is  certainly  a  feeble  result  compared  with  the  three  hundred 
thousand  whom  the  Dutch  reckoned,  especially  as  even  the 
fidelity  of  these  is  extremely  doubtful  and  precarious.  "  Of 
the  whole  number,"  adds  Sir  Emerson  Tennent,  "  one-seventh 
has  been  eventually  excommunicated  for  their  relapse  into 
heathenism,  and  even  of  the  remainder  the  missionaries  modest- 
ly remark  that  the  proportion  who  are  'real  Christians'  can 
only  be  known  to  God."*  "  The  Church  of  England  mission- 
aries," he  repeats,  "  speak  with  equal  humbleness  of  their  own 
labors  during  the  past." 

A  curious  example  of  the  real  character  of'the  so-called  con- 
verts is  furnished  in  the  official  reports  of  the  American  Board 
of  Foreign  Missions,  in  the  year  1837.  "  During  the  year," 
they  inform  their  subscribers,  "  forty-nine  were  received  into 
the  churches,  and  twenty -four  were  excommunicated,  "f 

If,  lastly,  we  inquire  what  the  Wesleyans,  whose  published 
reports  are  far  from  manifesting  the  same  spirit  of  humbleness, 
have  effected,  there  are  not  wanting  Protestant  witnesses  to  tell 
us.  "  It  is  certain,"  says  an  English  officer,  who  appears  to 
have  been  much  struck  by  the  "  superabundance"  of  mission- 
aries of  this  active  sect,  "that  their  exertions  and  privations  are 
greatly  exaggerated.  Their  religious  zeal  seems  directed  to 
the  inculcation  of  their  own  peculiar  tenets,  rather  than  to  the 
general  diffusion  of  the  light  of  Christian  knowledge.  Instead 
of  constantly  visiting  and  residing  at  the  various  out-stations, 
where  the  bulk  of  the  uninformed  population  dwell,  they  con- 
fine their  wanderings  within  the  limits  of  the  most  desirable 
places  of  residence  in  the  island. "J  This  infirmity  we  shall 
find  imputed  to  them  in  other  regions  also,  and  especially  in 
New  Zealand  and  America. 

But  it  is  fair  to  the  Wesleyans  to  admit,  that  this  avoidance 
of  hardship  is  no  distinctive  peculiarity  of  their  sect.  A  Prot- 
estant writer,  who  spent  eight  years  in  Ceylon,  and  who  de- 
plores very  candidly  "  the  enormous  sums  hitherto  expended, 
with  little  or  no  results,  upon  missionary  labor,"  gives  us  the 
following  information.  "For  many  years  I  have  traversed  the 
wildernesses  of  Ceylon,  at  all  hours  and  at  all  seasons.  I  have 


P.  170. 
P.  282. 
Rambles  in  Ceylon,  by  Lieut,  de  Butts,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  279. 


384  CHAPTER   IV. 

met  many  strange  things  during  my  journeys,  ~but  1  never 
recollect  having  met  a  missionary"  He  means  a  Protestant 
missionary,  for  he  continues  thus :  "  Nevertheless,  although 
Protestant  missionaries  are  so  rare  in  the  jungles  of  the  in- 
terior, and,  if  ever  there,  no  vestige  ever  remains  of  such  a  visit, 
still,  in  spots  where  it  might  be  least  expected,  may  be  seen  the 
humble  mud  hut,  surmounted  by  the  cross,  the  certain  trace  of 
some  persevering  priest  of  the  Roman  faith.  These  men  dis- 
play an  untiring  zeal,  and  no  point  is  too  remote  for  their 
good  offices.  Probably  they  are  not  so  comfortable  in  their 
quarters  in  the  towns  as  the  Protestant  missionaries,  and  thus 
they  have  less  hesitation  in  leaving  home."*  The  explana- 
tion is  somewhat  inadequate,  but  let  us  return  to  the  Wes- 
ley an  s. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Brown  has  described  their  operations,  espe- 
cially those  directed  by  a  certain  Dr.  Coke,  who  seems  to  have 
been  a  sort  of  ruler  among  them.  "  The  schools  which  were 
so  numerous,"  he  says,  u  and  so  numerously  attended,  were, 
after  some  years,  found  to  be  in  a  very  inefficient  state,  and  to 
have  done  little  good.  In  some  places  the  congregations  con- 
tinued good,  but  in  Columbo  and  others  of  the  principal  sta- 
tions, they  fell  off  greatly  ;  they  were  small,  fluctuating,  and 
very  discouraging.  Even  the  children  educated  in  the  schools, 
when  they  grew  up,  frequented  the  idol  temples,  and  scarcely  a 
youth  was  to  be  seen  at  chapel,  unless  he  was  still  a  scholar. 

Disappointment,  in  short,  was  felt  in  every  department 

of  the  mission. "f 

An  interesting  example  of  the  facts  noticed  by  Mr.  Baker, 
and  of  the  presence  of  a  devoted  Catholic  missionary  "  in  spots 
where  it  might  be  least  expected,"  occurs  in  the  narrative  of 
Dr.  Scherzer.  Advancing  with  his  companions  through  the 
primeval  forest,  "  along  a  beautiful  path,  beneath  cocoa  palms, 
tree-like  ferns,  and  broad-leaved  bananas,"  they  find  them- 
selves before  the  hidden  dwelling  of  Father  Miliani,  an  Italian 
Benedictine,  and  director  of  "  the  Catholic  mission  of  Saint 
Sebastian  de  Makun."  "  The  latter,  a  tall,  stately  figure,  with 
handsome  features  and  cultivated  manners,  received  us  most 
cordially.  Father  Miliani  has  already  lived  many  years  in  this 
country,  and  ministers  to  a  Christian  community  of  more  than 
one  thousand  souls.  Our  priestly  host  was  greatly  respected 
by  the  Cingalese.":): 

In  consequence  of  the  failure  of  preaching  and  Bible  distri- 


*  Baker,  p.  360. 

f  Hist,  of  Prop,  of  Christianity,  vol.  i.,  p.  515  (1854). 

|  Voyage  of  the  Nova/ra,  vol.  i.,  cli.  viii.,  p.  369. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  385 

butions,  the  plan  of  schools  was  tried,  as  in  India,  by  all  the 
sects,  and  with  precisely  the  same  results.  They  could  make 
atheists,  but  they  could  not  make  a  Christian.  "  In  Jaffna," 
we  are  told  by  Sir  Emerson  Tennent,  "  while  the  educational 
labors  of  the  American  mission  have  produced  almost  a  social 
revolution  throughout  the  province," — it  appears  that  their 
schools  were  organized  with  skill,  and  maintained  at  enormous 
cost, — "the  number  of  their  nominal  converts  has  barely 
exceeded  six  hundred,  out  of  ninety  thousand  pupils !"  And 
again,  speaking  of  the  general  results  obtained  by  all  the  sects, 
through  the  agency  of  literary  or  educational  efforts,  he  thus 
appreciates  the  costly  failure :  "  As  an  instrument  of  conversion 
to  Christianity,  the  press  has  hitherto  been  productive  of  but 
limited  success  in  Ceylon.  The  moral  results  have  been  limited 
and  unsatisfactory,  though  industriously  applied  to  the  multi- 
plication of  the  Scriptures  and  Scriptural  tracts,  and  to  the 
preparation  of  school-books  for  the  educational  establish- 
ments."'5' The  Americans  appear  to  have  surpassed  all  others 
in  prodigal  expenditure.  "  The  boarding-school  system,"  we 
learn  from  an  official  report,  "has  been  carried  to  a  greater 
extent  than  in  any  other  field  to  which  the  Board  has  sent  mis- 
sionaries." The  contributions  forwarded  from  the  United 
States,  in  the  single  year  1858,  ranged  from  twenty  to  three 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  for  each  pupil  in  the  Batticotta  school ; 
yet,  in  spite  of  a  liberality  which  it  is  difficult  to  estimate  but 
impossible  not  to  admire,  not  one  per  cent,  of  these  favored 
pupils,  though  instructed  with  energy  and  skill  during  a  long 
series  of  years,  has  made  even  a  nominal  profession  of  Chris- 
tianity !  Wealth,  talent,  and  perseverance,  combined  with 
unquestionable  humanity  and  benevolence,  have  utterly  failed 
to  obtain  results  which  Divine  grace  alone,  without  these  human 
aids,  has  power  to  accomplish.  In  Ceylon,  as  in  every  other 
land,  Protestant  missionaries  have  employed  a  leverage  power- 
ful enough  to  move  a  world,  and  after  the  convulsive  efforts  of 
half  a  century  have  not  succeeded  in  lifting  a  straw. 

They  tried  also,  as  a  last  resource, — and  in  this  the  various 
sects  appear,  as  usual,  to  •  have  competed  with  each  other,— 
hospitals,  orphanages,  and  other  eleemosynary  institutions, 
which  are  thus  alluded  to  by  Captain  Laplace,  who  commanded 
the  Artemise  on  her  voyage  of  scientific  discovery.  "The 
numerous  philanthropic  institutions,  destined  to  propagate 
Christianity  and  civilization  among  the  natives,  the  charitable 

*  Ch.  vi.,  p.  263.  The  reports  are  of  this  kind.  "  Columbo  boarding-school 
for  native  girls :  the  girls  are  well-behaved,  but  that  any  in  the  school  at 
present  are  subjects  of  grace,  I  do  not  think."  Seventieth  Report  of  Baptist 
Missionary  Society,  p.  49. 


386  CHAPTER   IV. 

establishments,  in  which  a  few  sufferers  find  relief  in  their  mis- 
fortunes, only  serve  to  hide  from  the  eyes  of  the  vulgar  the 
wretched  condition  in  which  the  population  of  Ceylon  languish, 
although  their  destiny  has  been  confided  for  many  years  to  that 
which  claims  to  be  the  most  philanthropic  nation  in  the  civil- 
ized world."* 

Several  years  later,  in  1861,  this  verdict  of  a  French  travel- 
ler is  once  more  confirmed,  with  equal  energy  of  expression, 
by  a  scientific  German.  "  With  all  its  development,"  says  Dr. 
Karl  Scherzer,  after  describing  the  industrial  enterprise  of  the 
Anglo-Cingalese,  "  European  industry  has,  in  this  quarter,  ex- 
ercised but  an  obscure  influence ;  and  thus  far  has  been  pro- 
ductive of  but  small  results  as  a  civilizing  element  among  this 
population,  which  has  hitherto  shown  itself  so  little  disposed 
to  accept  the  Christian  form  of  civilization."f 

Finally,  in  1862,  that  we  may  continue  the  narrative  to  the 
present  hour,  we  have  such  confessions  as  the  following,  as  to 
the  final  result  of  their  own  work,  by  Protestant  missionaries 
of  various  denominations. 

Of  the  Anglican  mission  at  Baddagama,  commenced  in  1819, 
and  supported  by  unlimited  resources,  and  the  countenance 
and  favor  of  the  civil  authorities,  the  Church  Missionary  Society 
sadly  observe,  "  A  congregation  of  fifty-three  adults  is  indeed 
but  a  small  result  after  forty  years'  unremitted  labor!"  And 
even  of  these  fifty-three,  the  remnant  of  all  who,  at  any  time, 
have  received  the  "  pecuniary  advantages"  which,  as  the  same 
report  admits,  "  foster  a  weakly  and  torpid  Christianity,"  the 
missionaries  only  venture  to  say,  "  the  members  generally  are, 
in  outward  conduct  at  least,  satisfactory  Christians." 

From  Kandy,  commenced  in  1818,  and  conducted  with  every 
temporal  advantage,  the  Anglican  missionary,  Mr.  Oakley, 
reports  thus :  "  My  work,  as  in  former  years,  has  been  chiefly 
among  those  who  are  nominally  Christians,"  though  he  admits 
that  they  "for  the  most  part  were  baptized  in  infancy,"  and 
have  received  the  precepts  of  Anglicanism  for  forty-four  years ! 
His  colleague,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Parsons,  announces  that  the  na- 
tives have  even  begun  to  "  establish  heathen  schools,"  which 
"retard  our  present  apparent  success,"  thus  making  matters 
worse  than  before ;  but  he  is  sanguine  enough  to  affirm  that  it 
is  only  a  temporary  discouragement,  because  "  the  Buddhist 
theories  taught  'will  be  met  with  counter-instruction,  and  Prot- 
estantism will  at  length  succeed,  when  it  shall  please  God  to 
pour  out  his  Spirit." 

*  Voyage  de  I'Artemise,  tome  iii.,  p.  78. 

f  Voyage  of  the  Nonara,  by  Dr.  Karl  Scherzer;  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  394. 
English  edition. 


MISSIONS  IN   CEYLON.  387 

Lastly,  from  the  Jaffna  district,  where  they  commenced 
operations  in  1818,  and  acknowledge  at  least  one  church 
"  liberally  erected  by  government,"  the  Anglican  missionaries 
present  the  following  modest  account :  "  There  is  not  very 
much  of  a  definite  character  to  report  on."  They  console 
themselves  indeed,  for  they  are  easily  comforted,  with  the 
reflection  that  "  a  vast  amount  of  Gospel  truth  has  been  made 
known  ;"  but  they  confess  in  the  same  sentence,  "  there  has 
been  no  very  marked  success  in  the  conversion  of  the  heathen." 
Yet  they  have  enjoyed,  for  nearly  half  a  century,  every  aid  and 
appliance,  except  the  blessing  of  God,  which  it  was  possible  to 
imagine  or  desire,  and  admit  that  they  have  "  one  hundred  and 
seventeen  seminaries  and  schools,"  and  employ,  in  addition  to 
the  missionaries,  "  one  hundred  and  fifty-one  native  lay  agents." 
And  the  effect  of  this  vast  machinery  is  recorded  in  the  humili- 
ating confession,  that  "  there  is  not  very  much  of  a  definite 
character  to  report  on."* 

In  presence  of  such  facts,  uniform  in  every  land,  and  in  each 
succeeding  generation,  there  is  reason  for  surprise  that  none  of 
these  Anglican  clergymen  appear  even  to  suspect,  that  their 
continual  failure  may  be  due  to  want  of  vocation  and  mission, 
and  that  they  possibly  belong  to  that  class  of  whom  the  Lord 
of  Missions  has  said,  "  I  did  not  send  them,  yet  they  ran  :  I 
have  not  spoken  to  them,  yet  they  prophesied." 

The  "Wesleyans,  who  appear  to  be  chiefly  occupied  in  fighting 
with  the  Anglicans,  and  in  striving,  with  scanty  success,  to 
corrupt  the  Catholics,  give  us  the  following  information.  In 
one  place  near  Columbo  they  lament  "  peculiar  trials,  from  the 
opposition  of  the  High  Church  party,  arid  from  the  tendency  of 
some  hearers  to  resort  secretly  to  heathen  ceremonies  in  times 
of  affliction."  In  another,  "  twelve  persons  have  been  added 
to  the  society,  but  the  loss  by  deaths,  secessions,  &c.,  has  been 
somewhat  greater"  They  are  also  " much  pained  at  finding 
that  some  of  our  members,  who  follow  their  occupations  at 
Kandy  during  a  part  of  the  year,  return  with  diminished  piety, 
and  others  cease  to  be  members."  Stability  is  not  a  character- 
istic of  Protestant  Cingalese.  At  a  third  place,  "  Our  work  is 
much  opposed  by  Buddhists  and  Romanists,  and  some  of  our 
members  ....  become  unsettled,  or  indifferent  to  religion  in 
general."  At  a  fourth,  "  A  worldly  spirit  has  appeared  in  some 
of  our  people."  At  a  fifth,  while  some  pagans  "  are  anxiously 
inquiring  after  the  truth," — or  after  the  money  of  the  Wesleyan 
Missionary  Society, — "  it  is  a  matter  of  great  sorrow  that  two 
or  three  oi'our  members  participated  in  heathen  ceremonies,  and 

*  Church  Missionary  Society's  Report,  1862,  pp.  177-185. 


388  CHAPTER   IV. 

were  consequently  expelled."  At  a  sixth,  "  The  too  general 
neglect  of  the  class-meeting,"  which  the  natives  apparently  find 
insupportable,  "is  cause  of  much  anxiety."  At  Jaffna,  "The 
services  were  blessed  to  several,"  but  there  is  not  a  hint  that 
they  became  Wesleyans.  At  Trincomalee,  "During  the  year 
there  have  been  three  adult  baptisms,  and  one  recantation  of 
Romanism,"  so  that  they  could  say,  "  The  work  of  God  has  of 
late  assumed  a  favorable  aspect ;"  while  at  Batticoloa,  where 
"four  heathens  have  been  received  into  the  Christian  Church," 
until  they  get  tired  of  it,  their  triumphs  compel  them  to  exclaim, 
"We  have  been  blessed  with  a  rich  sense  of  the  presence  of  our 
God."*  And  this  is  about  the  sum  of  all  which  they  have  done 
in  Ceylon  up  to  1862. 

The  Baptists  have  been  quite  as  successful  as  the  Anglicans 
and  Wesleyans.  At  Columbo,  "  during  the  year  three  only 

have  put  on  the  Lord  by  baptism The  congregations 

have  been  about  as  usual,  but  the  success  is  small."  At  Grand 
Pass,  their  missionary  says,  "  I  am  constrained  to  acknowledge 
that,  in  the  absence  of  any  striking  events,  we  have  enjoyed 
many  rich  blessings,  and  the  manifestation  of  heavenly  grace 
has  been  fully  granted.  One  only  has  been  baptized  and  added 
to  the  Church  during  the  year."  At  another  place,  "fowr 
have  been  baptized,  and  one  received,  three  died,  and  two  were 
excluded."  If  we  understand  the  figures  in  this  case,  the  year's 
progress  is  represented  by  zero.  At  Tombowille,  "  there  are 
some  Church  members,  but  they  are  almost  lifeless  Christians. 
We  must  pray  for  them  earnestly."  But  they  had  a  triumph 
here  of  another  kind,  for  "  some  Wesleyans  are  searching 
about  our  solemn  immersion."  At  Hendella,  which  "  abounds 
more  with  Roman  Catholics  than  others,"  "  the  congregation 
is  a  little  more  increased  than  before."  What  it  was  before  is 
not  stated,  but  now,  the  missionary  adds,  "  the  members  of  the 
Church  are  three"  In  another  populous  district,  "Though  I 
preach  the  Gospel  continually,  in  these  and  the  neighboring 
villages,"  says  the  Baptist  emissary,  "the progress  is  very  slow." 
Of  some  of  his  flock  he  says,  although  all  were  baptized,  "  their 
actions  are  not  different  from  the  other  heathen.  Others, 
deceived  by  the  Catholics,  will  not  come  to  our  chapels,  nor 

will  they  permit  their  children  to  come  to  our  schools 

Four  men  are  seeking  to  be  baptized  ;  two  have  been  excluded, 
and  one  died."  As  this  gentleman  observes,  "  the  progress  is 
very  slow." 

Another  of  their  agents  reports  thus :  "  The  disturbances  of 
the  Catholics  are  very  great  from  time  to  time ;"  which  appears 

*  Report  of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  Missionary  Society,  1862,  pp.  16-33. 


MISSIONS  IN  CEYLON.  389 

from  the  immediate  context  to  mean  that  his  precarious  disciples 
u  received  the  advice  of  hinderers,"  and  learned  to  despise  "our 
solemn  immersion."  From  another  place  the  Baptist  Missionary 
Society  receives  this  disheartening  narrative:  "  The  Gospel  goes 
every  day  to  knock  at  the  doors  of  men,  to  bring  them  from 
darkness  to  light,  but  the  ungodly  oppose  their  reasonings. 
They  call  darkness  light."  And  then  he  gives  a  very  curious 
explanation.  The  Anglican  natives  say,  "  Our  ministers  are 
authorized  by  the  English  government,  and  if  we  go  to  another 
place  of  worship,  we  are  disgraced  by  them.  Others  say,  we 
belong  to  the  Church  Missionary  Society  ;  their  schools  are  in 
our  gardens ;  our  children  obtain  food  and  clothing  from  them, 
and  we  can  obtain  all  our  wants,  and  therefore  it  is  better  than 
coming  to  your  churches.  Others  say,  we  are  Buddhists,  and 
worshippers  of  gods  and  goddesses.  It  is  the  principal  religion. 
We  submit  to  the  regulations  of  the  government,  and  can  more- 
over get  our  children  baptized" — without  ceasing  to  be  Buddhists ! 
Lastly,  "  Some  say,  we  belong  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  Our 
congregations  are  large.  Our  places  of  worship  are  many  and 
beautiful,  and  the  miracles  are  wonderful ;  wrhy  then  should 
we  give  them  up  ?"  And  so  "  the  progress  is  very  slow,"  and 
the  missionary  concludes  with  this  impressive  summary  of  his 
work :  "  During  last  year  I  had  twenty -five  candidates  ;  out  of 
that  number  six  died,  seven  ran  away,  six  are  wavering  back- 
wards and  forwards,  and  six  are  standing  still  as  candidates." 
Yet  the  Baptist  Missionary  Society  are  very  cheerful  and  con- 
tented, and  it  is  a  proof  both  of  the  liberality  and  the  discretion 
of  their  subscribers,  that  "  the  income  of  the  society  for  the 
present  year  is  the  largest  the  society  has  ever  received."* 

And  now  that,  by  the  aid  exclusively  of  Protestant  witnesses, 
we  have  traced  the  history  and  results  of  Protestant  'missions  in 
Ceylon, — Dutch,  American,  and  English, — it  only  remains  to 
inquire,  in  conclusion,  what  the  Catholic  missionaries  have 
done,  and  what  sort  of  converts  they  have  rescued  from  the 
cruel  bondage  of  Buddhist  superstition  and  idolatry.  The 
same  witnesses  will  tell  us. 

We  have  heard  already,  from  Protestants  of  various  classes, 
not  only  that  "  vast  numbers"  of  the  natives  of  Ceylon  have 
been  converted  to  the  faith,  and,  as  Mr.  Selkirk  lamented,  are 
being  "daily  converted,"  but  that,  in  the  words  of  Sir  Emerson 
Tennent,  "  neither  corruption  nor  coercion  could  induce  them 
to  abjure  it."  "Their  numbers  actually  increased  under  per- 
secution," says  the  same  writer ;  "  they  continue  steadfast  in 
their  adherence"  to  the  faith,  says  Mr.  Selkirk,  though  up  to 

*  Seventieth  Report  of  the  Baptist  Missionary  Society,  pp.  46, 51. 


390  CHAPTER  IV. 

1848  there  were  only  thirty  Catholic  missionaries  to  serve  four 
hundred  churches,  and  nearly  two  hundred  thousand  Chris- 
tians;  they  are  "bigoted"  to  their  creed,  adds  Dr.  Smith,  by 
which  he  means  constant  and  inflexible. 

Baldseus  had  confessed  long  before,  that  "the  most  cruel 
persecutions  of  the  kings  of  Jaffnapatam  could  not  shake  the 
faith  of  the  Catholic  converts,"  though,  as  he  observes,  "  they 
baptized  many  of  the  new  converted  natives  with  blood,  after 
they  had  received  the  baptism  by  water."*  And  the  history 
continues  the  same  to  the  end,  for  Sir  Emerson  Tennent  declares 
that  "  their  ranks  are  said  to  be  daily  increased  by  an  accession 
of  fresh  converts  from  the  heathen. "f 

Nor  has  any  Protestant  writer  ventured  to  give  any  other 
account  of  them.  The  Catholic  missionaries,  they  complain 
with  one  voice,  succeed  in  winning  the  allegiance  of  their  hearts 
and  souls,  while  their  unsuccessful  rivals  only  reckon  converts 
who  deride  their  religion,  even  while  they  nominally  profess  it, 
go  out  from  a  Protestant  sermon  to  "  worship  devils,"  and  boast 
that  they  are  Buddhists  and  Christians  at  the  same  time.  "The 
ascendency  exercised  by  the  Romish  priests  over  the  minds  of 
their  flocks,"  says  Mr.  Pridham, "  is  very  complete  in  the  places 
where  that  religion  chiefly  obtains,  far  exceeding  that  of  their 
Buddhist  predecessors."  The  Rev.  James  Cordiner,  Protestant 
chaplain  to  the  garrison  of  Columbo,  sorrowfully  records  that 
"  a  great  body  of  the  inhabitants  now  continue  voluntarily  firm 
in  their  adherence  to  the  Church  of  Rome."  Of  the  Catholic 
clergy  he  candidly  confesses,  "  They  are  indefatigable  in  their 
labors,  and  are  daily  making  proselytes.  Their  chapels,  built 
and  endowed  by  the  contributions  of  the  natives" — not  of  the 
government  nor  of  the  missionary  societies — "  are  neat  and 
well-furnished. ";):  And  they  are  continually  building  new  ones. 
Fifteen  Catholic  churches  were  in  progress  of  erection  in  1857, 
in  the  single  province  of  Jaffna.  "It  is  unquestionable,"  says 
an  official  writer,  already  quoted,  who  had  noted  all  these 
facts,  "  that  the  natives  became  speedily  attached  to  their  cere- 
monies and  modes  of  worship" — that  is,  to  their  faith  and 
practice,  to  call  things  by  their  proper  names — "  and  have 
adhered  to  them  with  remarkable  tenacity  for  upwards  of 
three  hundred  years. "§ 

Such  is  the  first  feature  in  the  contrast  between  Catholic  and 
Protestant  converts  in  Ceylon  ;  but  there  are  others  still  more 

*  In  Churchill's  Collection,  vol.  iii.,  p.  716. 
•j-  Ch.  iii.,  p.  115. 

\.  A  Description  of  Ceylon,  bythe  Rev.  James  Cordiner,  A.M.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v., 
p.  154. 
§  Sir  E.  Tennent,  ii.,  68. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  391 

worthy  of  our  notice.  "  One  remarkable  circumstance  is  ob- 
servable in  their  converts,"  says  Sir  Emerson  Tennent,  "  that 
the  number  of  nominal  Christians  is  infinitely  smaller  amongst 
the  Roman  Catholics  than  amongst  the  professors  of  any  other 
church  in  Ceylon."*  But  this  is  too  momentous  a  distinction  to 
be  left  to  the  testimony  of  a  single  witness,  however  competent 
and  impartial.  We  could  hardly  have  ventured  to  anticipate 
that  Protestants  would  exalt  the  superiority  of  Catholic  converts, 
yet  Providence  has  arranged  this  also,  and  in  using  them  to 
proclaim  their  numbers  to  the  world  has  forced  them  to  confess 
their  virtues  at  the  same  time.  It  is  a  Wesleyan  missionary, — 
full  of  the  most  extravagant  prejudice,  so  that  he  is  not  ashamed 
to  call  an  image  of  Our  Lady  and  the  Infant  Jesus,  "a  female 
idol  with  a  child  in  its  arms  !" — who  thus  describes,  in  obedience 
to  a  power  of  which  he  was  unconscious,  the  Catholics  of  Ceylon. 
"It  is  but  justice  to  this  class  of  native  Christians  to  state,  that 
in  general  they  are  more  detached  from  the  customs  of  the  pagan 
inhabitants,  more  regular  in  their  attendance  on  the  religious 
services  of  their  communion,  and  their  general  conduct  more 
consistent  with  the  moral  precepts  of  Christianity,  than  any 
other  religious  body  of  any  magnitude  on  the  island. "f  But 
this  gentleman  was  so  impressed  by  their  marvellous  constancy, 
under  all  trials  and  temptations,  that  he  could  not  restrain  his 
reluctant  admiration.  The  following  example  might  well  excite 
the  astonishment  of  one  who  was  familiar  only  with  Protestant 
converts.  "More  than  two  centuries,"  he  says,  "after  the  Por- 
tuguese had  been  driven  out,  two  small  colonies  of  Roman 
Catholic  Christians,  the  fruit  of  the  Portuguese  mission,  were 
discovered  embosomed  in  the  Kandyan  jungles.  Though  un- 
supplied  with  priests,  they  had  continued  a  separate  people, 
and  preserved  their  attachment  to  the  Christian  name  and 
ordinances.  A  copy  of  the  New  Testament,  translated  into  the 
vernacular  tongue  by  an  European  Catholic  priest,  was  found 
in  their  possession  ;  and  notwithstanding  the  errors  of  their 
system,  the  author  cannot  but  avow  his  conviction,  that  such  a 
translation,  in  connection  with  the  singular  preservation  of  the 
congregations  referred  to,  furnishes  a  strong  presumption  of  the 
purity  and  sincerity  of  those  who  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
work. ";j;  Certainly  so  wonderful  a  fact  might  well  suggest  this 
conclusion,  and  we  have  reason  to  be  surprised  that  this  was 
all  the  effect  it  produced. 

The  superior  morality  of  the  Catholic  natives  was  also  gen- 
erously attested  by  Sir  Alexander  Johnston,  Chief  Justice  of 

*  Sir  E.  Tennent,  iii.,  96. 

f  Harvard's  Nawatice,  introd.,  p.  67. 

J  Ibid.,  p.  64. 


392  CHAPTER  IV. 

Ceylon,  who  honorably  confessed  to  the  Archbishop  of  Goa, 
"  that  in  a  circuit  he  had  lately  made  through  the  island,  there 
was  not  a  single  Catholic  brought  for  trial." 

All  the  Protestant  witnesses  appear  to  notice  with  surprise, 
some  with  peevish  displeasure,  another  striking  contrast  between 
their  own  adherents  and  the  disciples  of  the  Catholic  faith.  Sir 
Emerson  Tennent,  after  deploring  "the  trifling  aggregate  con- 
tributions" of  the  Protestant  converts,  says,  "The  Roman 
Catholic  converts  are  by  far  the  most  willing  to  contribute  from 
their  own  means  to  the  support  of  their  clergy  and  churches,  and 
their  donations  for  these  purposes  are  on  a  scale  of  extreme 
liberality."  And  this  liberality  is  displayed  by  all  ranks  alike ; 
although,  as  Mr.  Bertolacci  observes,  "poverty  prevails  in 
Ceylon  more  than  in  many  other  countries,  because  there  are 
so  very  few  manufactures  carried  on  in  it."*  "All  the  fisher- 
men," says  a  Presbyterian  writer,  "  are  said  to  be  Roman 
Catholics,  and  the  tithe  they  pay  to  be  worth  ten  thousand 
pounds  a  year."f  "  Many  of  the  Romanist  churches  in  Colum- 
bo,"  says  Mr.  Pridham,  "  have  been  built  from  the  funds  wrung 
from  the  earnings  of  the  devoted  fishermen."  He  says  "  wrung," 
though  he  knows  the  gift  is  one  of  voluntary  charity,  and  does 
not  stop  to  consider  what  makes  them  "  devoted."  Mr.  Selkirk, 
though  not  less  influenced  by  angry  prejudice,  says,  "The  Ro- 
man Catholics  of  the  fisher-caste  are  building  a  new  church  at 
Negombo  entirely  at  their  own  expense.  They  refuse  to  take 
money,  which  people  of  other  castes,  though  Roman  Catholics, 
are  willing  to  subscribe.  They  give  up  the  produce  of  their 
fishing  one  day  in  the  week  for  this  purpose."^:  Mr.  Selkirk, 
though  a  missionary,  calls  this  "  a  specimen  of  the  zeal  of  the 
Roman  Catholics  which  might  put  Protestants  to  the  blush." 
Mr.  Robinson  also,  though  he  loses  all  self-possession  when  he 
speaks  of  Catholics,  was  so  struck  by  the  same  class  of  facts, 
that  he  uses  exactly  the  same  expression :  "  The  zeal  of  some 
of  the  poor  Roman  Catholics  in  Ceylon  might  put  many  Eng- 
lish Protestants  to  the  blush. "§  We  shall  presently  hear  even 
a  pagan  Cingalese  making  the  same  remark. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  and  a  sufficient  refutation  of  Mr. 
Pridharn's  unwise  calumnies,  that  the  natives,  from  whom  their 
Catholic  pastors  have  no  need  to  "wring"  the  contributions 

*  View  of  Ceylon,  by  A.  Bertolacci,  Esq.,  p.  205. 

f  Six  Years  in  India,  by  Mrs.  C.  Mackenzie,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  110. 

|  Recollections,  &c.,  p.  391. 

§  Romanism  in  Ceylon,  p.  163.  The  contrast  may  well  irritate  the  Protestant 
ministers.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Parsons,  an  Anglican  missionary  who  has  been  thir- 
teen years  in  Ceylon,  reports  in  1862  :  "  That  they  must  pay  for  the  support  of 
Christianity  themselves,  is  a  lesson  the  (Protestant)  Singhalese  everywhere 
are  slow  to  learn."  Church  Missionary  Society's  Report,  1862,  p.  178. 


MISSIONS  IN   CEYLON.  393 

which  their  zeal  spontaneously  offers,  will  sometimes  build 
churches  even  in  places  where  there  is  no  Catholic  missionary, 
in  the  hope  that  their  unsolicited  munificence  may  induce  one 
to  compassionate  their  need  ;  and  the  writer  who  records  this 
striking  and  unexampled  fact,  and  who  once  lived  amongst 
them,  says,  "  We  know  of  a  single  priest,  who,  under  not  extra- 
ordinary circumstances,  baptized  more  than  one  hundred  and 
twelve  adults  in  the  course  of  one  year."* 

But  besides  building  churches  out  of  their  poverty,  and  at 
the  instigation  solely  of  their  own  pious  zeal,  we  learn  from 
Protestants  to  "Whose  honor  they  dedicate  them.  It  appears 
that  Mr.  Selkirk,  in  spite  of  his  dislike  of  the  "  mummeries  of 
Popery,"  sometimes  ventured  to  enter  the  Catholic  churches. 
"  Of  course  I  could  not  understand  the  service,"  he  says,  "  but 
the  name  of  4  Maria'  came  often  over,  and  some  of  them 
repeated  at  intervals  the  name  of  '  Jesus,'  in  a  very  feeling 
manner,  and  smote  their  breasts,  crying  out,  '  My  sin,  my  great 
sin.' "  We  who  do  "  understand  the  service"  have  no  difficulty 
in  comprehending,  even  from  this  defective  account,  what 
these  good  people  were  doing,  and  Whose  praises  they  were 
celebrating. 

And  now  we  have  sufficient  Protestant  evidence  of  these 
facts, — that  the  Catholic  natives  of  Ceylon  exist  everywhere  in 
great  numbers ;  that  new  conversions  occur  "  daily ;"  that 
nothing  can  seduce  their  constancy,  and  that  they  are  moral, 
diligent  in  prayer,  subject  in  all  sincerity  to  their  pastors,  and 
profuse  in  sacrifices  and  alms-deeds.  It  is  not  from  Catholic 
witnesses,  to  whom  we  have  no  need  to  apply,  that  we  learn 
this,  but  from  men  who  record  it  with  grief  and  dismay.  We 
cannot  be  surprised  then  to  learn,  and  this  may  be  our  final 
observation,  that  even  the  heathen  Cingalese,  both  educated 
and  ignorant,  easily  discriminate  between  them  and  the  nominal 
Christians  of  the  Protestant  sects. 

The  journal  of  "Bishop  Chapman  of  Columbo,"  of  the  year 
1850, — for  all  the  facts  we  have  noticed  remain  unchanged  up 
to  the  present  hour, — records  the  following  instance  of  the  es- 
timate which  the  heathen  themselves  have  formed  of  the  results 
of  Protestant  conversion.  A  Kandyan  chief,  invited  by  an 
Anglican  missionary  to  allow  his  son  to  be  baptized,  gave  him 
this  answer :  "  What !  would  you  have  me  make  him  a 
drunkard  ?"f  Another  Protestant  writer,  in  1854,  gives  a 
recent  example  still  more  curious  and  instructive,  and  one 
which  will  render  all  further  testimony  superfluous. 

*  See  Dublin  Review,  vol.  xxv.,  p.  106. 
f  Colonial  Church  Chronicle,  vol.  v.,  p.  269. 


394  CHAPTER   IV. 

Mr.  Knighton,  who  was  familiar  with  the  interior  as  well  as 
with  the  maritime  provinces  of  Ceylon,  relates  in  his  interest- 
ing work  four  conversations  which  he  had  with  an  educated 
Buddhist,  Marandhan,  a  Kandyan  colonel,  who  was  "  a  fine 
specimen  of  his  class,"  and  whom  he  endeavored  to  convert  to 
Christianity.  Marandhan  remarked  to  him  that  he  had  ob- 
served "  the  rancorous  hatred  between  Protestants  and  Roman 
Catholics,"  and  continued  thus :  "  Well,  with  respect  to  these 
two  great  bodies  of  Christians,  I  have  observed  this — and  I  am 
sure  you  will  not  be  offended  at  my  mentioning  it." 

Knighton.  "  Certainly  not ;  any  observations  of  yours  on 
the  subject  I  should  be  glad  to  hear." 

M.  "  Well,  this  : — Protestants  talk,  most  of  their  religion ; 
Roman  Catholics  believe  most.  The  former  seem  more  enlight- 
ened on  the  subject;  the  latter  put  their  trust  in  Christianity 
more  firmly  and  more  unhesitatingly.  J^fany  of  the  former 
seem  to  be  skeptics,  and  none  of  the  latter.  Of  this,  too,  I  feel 
certain,  that,  generally  speaking,  the  latter  will  make  more 
sacrifices  for  their  religion  than  the  former." 

The  Kandyan, — who  was  apparently  a  keen  observer,  and 
whose  remarks  upon  the  contrast  which  he  had  detected  go 
some  way  towards  explaining  the  failure  of  Protestant  missions 
in  all  lands, — then  instanced  a  recent  case,  an  abortive  attempt 
to  collect  subscriptions  for  a  Protestant  missionary  from  among 
the  planters,  and  went  on  thus : — 

"  Considering  the  number  of  planters  in  this  province,  how 
small  a  proportion  was  willing  to  aid  the  original  purposes  of 
the  scheme  in  carrying  it  out !  I  saw  the  list  in  the  news- 
paper, not  one-twentieth  part  of  the  entire  planting  population, 
and  yet  all  had  been  applied  to !  Now,  had  they  been  Roman 
Catholics,  instead  of  Protestants,  do  you  think  that  result 
would  have  followed  ?" 

K.  •"  Probably  not.  The  unhappy  disunion  amongst  us  was 
the  cause,  however,  of  the  failure  of  the  scheme." 

M.  "  Another  result  of  private  judgment !" 

K.  "  Perhaps  so.  We  are  wandering,  however,  from  Bud- 
dhism."* The  conversation  was  apparently  taking  an  un- 
pleasant turn,  and  Mr.  Knighton  hastened  to  divert  it  into  a 
safer  channel.  He  found  it  easier  to  attack  Buddhism  than  to 
shield  his  own  religion  from  the  assaults  of  so  intelligent  an 
adversary. 

We  have  been  told  that  the  heathen  in  other  lands  are  quite 
as  observant  of  "  the  unhappy  disunion"  which  is  the  charac- 
teristic of  Protestantism  as  the  natives  of  Ceylon.  The  Chinese 

*  Forest  Life  in  Ceylon,  by  W.  Knighton,  M.A.,  vol.  ii.,  app.,  pp.  411,  412. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  395 

replies  to  the  missionaries  of  the  various  sects  which  present 
their  conflicting  religions  for  his  acceptance,  "  You  must  have 
as  many  Christs  in  Europe  as  we  have  gods  in  China ;"  and 
the  Hindoo  says,  as  Mr.  Le  Bas  told  us,  "  I  should  like  your 
Christianity  better  if  there  were  not  quite  so  many  kinds  of 
it."  Let  us  hear  what  Protestant  writers  relate  of  the  same 
mode  of  reasoning  in  Ceylon. 

"I  cannot  but  regret,"  says  Major  Forbes,  "the  numerous 
and  perplexing  divisions  of  the  Christian  community."*  He 
had  seen  what  were  their  bitter  fruits,  which  a  more  philo- 
sophical writer  thus  describes  at  large  for  the  admonition  and 
instruction  of  his  co-religionists. 

"A  serious  obstacle  to  the  acceptance  of  reformed  Christianity 
by  the  Singhalese  Buddhists  has  arisen  from  the  distinctions 
and  differences  between  the  various  churches  by  whose  ministers 
it  has  been  successively  oifered  to  them.  In  the  persecutions  of 
the  Roman  Catholics  by  the  Dutch,  the  subsequent  supersession 
of  the  Church  of  Holland  by  that  of  England,  the  rivalries  more 
or  less  apparent  between  the  Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians, 
and  the  peculiarities  which  separate  the  Baptists  from  the 
Wesley  an  Methodists — all  of  whom  have  their  missions  and 
representatives  in  Ceylon — the  Singhalese  can  discover  little 
more  than  that  they  are  offered  something  still  doubtful  and 
unsettled,  in  exchange  for  which  they  are  pressed  to  surrender 
their  own  ancient  superstition.  Conscious  of  their  inability  to 
decide  on  what  it  has  baffled  the  wisest  of  their  European  teachers 
to  reconcile,  they  hesitate  to  exchange  for  an  apparent  uncer- 
tainty what  has  been  unhesitatingly  believed  by  generations 
of  their  ancestors,  and  comes  recommended  to  them  by  all  the 
authority  of  antiquity;  and  even  when  truth  has  been  so  far 
successful  as  to  shake  their  confidence  in  their  national  faith, 
the  choice  of  sects  which  has  been  offered  to  them  leads  to 
utter  bewilderment  as  to  the  peculiar  form  of  Christianity  with 
which  they  may  most  confidingly  replace  it."f  If  the  experi- 
ence and  observation  of  Sir  Emerson  Tennent  had  issued  only 
in  this  pregnant  statement,  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 
over-estimate  its  value. 

We  have  already  seen,  in  reviewing  the  history  of  Protestant 
missions  in  other  lands,  and  we  shall  meet  with  fresh  examples 
in  every  chapter  of  this  work,  that  the  most  evident  effect  of 

*  Eleven  Years  in  Ceylon,  by  Major  Forbes,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  112.  Dr.  Jobson, 
who  was  deputed  to  visit  the  Wesleyan  missions,  says,  "  I  was  sorry  to  learn 
that  high  ecclesiasticism  had  of  late  cruelly  sought  to  disturb  native  converts 
by  the  introduction  among  them  of  foolish  questions  on  priestly  authority, 
and  the  validity  of  the  sacraments."  Australia,  &c.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  79. 

f  Sir  E.  Tennent,  ch.  v.,  p.  196. 


396  CHAPTER  IV. 

the  presence  of  Protestant  missionaries  in  pagan  countries  is  to 
render  their  conversion  impossible.  The  instincts  of  human 
nature  suffice  to  condemn  a  form  of  religion  which  cannot  unite 
even  its  own  disciples  in  a  uniform  profession ;  and  the  heathen 
only  smiles  at  the  pretensions  of  a  doctrine  in  which  he  detects 
the  inconstancy,  contradictions,  and  incoherence  which  betray 
even  to  his  dull  eye  its  earthly  origin.  He  knows  that  what- 
ever be  truth,  this  it  cannot  be.  And  Protestant  travellers, 
affrighted  by  the  unwelcome  portent  which  confronts  them  at 
every  step  in  their  wanderings,  have  contended  with  one  another 
in  uttering  cries  of  warning,  rebuke,  or  entreaty,  which  attest 
indeed  the  mortal  influence  of  the  evil  they  deplore,  but  do  not 
even  suggest  a  remedy.  '*  In  Ceylon  and  in  India,"  says  one 
who  had  visited  many  lands,  and  brought  away  the  same  sor- 
rowing conviction  from  each,  "  the  Protestant  Church  has  no 
chance  in  competition  with  the  Roman  Catholic.  The  import- 
ance of  the  precept,  '  In  veste  varietas  sit,  non  sit  scissura^  is 
fully  recognized  by  the  latter  Church,  which  admits  of  no 
schism  to  affect  its  form  of  worship,  thereby  offering  a  marked 
contrast  to  the  varied  forms  and  conflicting  doctrines  of  the 
Protestant  faith,  that  not  only  weaken  and  nullify  her  at  home, 
but  utterly  confuse  and  astound  the  ignorant  heathen  abroad."* 
And  another  writer, — for  all  who  have  no  private  interest  to 
serve  use  the  same  language, — after  noticing  that  the  only  con- 
verts made  in  Ceylon  are  Catholics,  thus  explains  the  sterility 
of  the  Protestant  missions:  "Among  the  confusion  arising 
from  our  multitudinous  sects  and  schisms,  the  native  is  natu- 
rally bewildered.  What  with  High  Church,  Low  Church, 
Baptists,  "Wesley ans,  Presbyterians,  &c.,  &c.,  &c.,  the  ignorant 
native  is  perfectly  aghast  at  the  variety  of  choice."f 

And  now  we  may  ask,  since  it  is  the  only  inquiry  which 
remains  to  be  satisfied,  what  explanation  do  Protestants  offer 
of  this  new  example,  attested  \>y  themselves,  of  the  contrast 
between.  Catholic  and  Protestant  missions  to  the  heathen  ? 
Most  of  them,  it  appears,  maintain  in  this  case  an  absolute 
silence,  and  are  content  to  acknowledge  a  fact  which  the 
researches  of  their  own  friends  have  disclosed.  They  proclaim 
the  complete  and  unchanging  success  of  the  Catholic,  the  per- 
petual failure  of  the  Protestant  missionaries,  and  then  they  are 
silent.  But  Sir  Emerson  Tennent,  though  too  upright  and 
intelligent  to  countenance  any  disingenuous  pleadings,  and 
though  he  sharply  rebukes  both  English  calumny  and  Dutch 
cruelty,  is  of  too  ardent  a  temper  not  to  attempt  at  least  some 

*  A  Visit  to  Ceylon,  by  Edward  Sullivan,  ch.  vii.,  p.  78. 
f  Baker,  Eight  Years,  &c.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  361. 


MISSIONS  IN"  CEYLON.  397 

solution  of  the  problem.  He  puts  aside,  first  of  all,  as  might 
be  expected  in  such  a  man,  the  immoral  fictions  of  writers  like 
Hough  and  Cordiner,  who  try  to  obscure  an  unwelcome  fact  by 
boldly  asserting  that  the  Catholics  "  compelled  the  natives  of 
Ceylon  to  adopt  their  religion."  "  I  have  discovered  nothing," 
says  Sir  Emerson,  "  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Portuguese  in 
Ceylon  to  justify  the  imputation  of  violence  and  constraint ; 
but  unfortunately  as  regards  the  Dutch  Presbyterians,  their 
own  records  are  conclusive  as  to  the  severity  of  their  measures, 
and  the  ill  success  by  which  they  were  followed."  But  if  the 
earlier  Catholic  missionaries  disdained  such  criminal  and  profit- 
less measures,  even  when  the  civil  authorities  were,  in  some 
instances,  men  of  their  own  faith,  much  less  could  they  dream 
of  adopting  them  during  the  last  two  centuries,  when  they 
were  themselves  the  objects  of  ceaseless  and  unsparing  perse- 
cution. Yet  it  is  precisely  during  the  latter  epoch,  under 
the  Dutch  and  English  governments,  that  their  successes  have 
been  most  conspicuous. 

We  are  not  surprised,  then,  that  a  writer  like  Sir  Emerson 
Tennent  should  refuse  to  adopt  an  explanation  at  once  so 
inadequate  and  so  arbitrary.  He  suggests,  however,  in  grave 
and  temperate  language,  two  considerations,  which  appear  to 
have  impressed  his  own  mind,  and  which  deserve  our  respectful 
notice.  The  inflexible  stability,  as  well  as  the  superior  morality 
of  the  Catholic  natives,  may,  he  thinks,  be  partly  attributed  to 
"  the  overruling  influence  of  the  Confessional,  and  the  unin- 
termitted  control  which  it  exerts  over  the  feelings  and  the 
actions  of  its  votaries."  And  then  he  adds,  "  In  fact,  if  any 
evidence  were  wanting  to  substantiate  the  real  ascendency  thus 
acquired  and  maintained  by  the  Church  of  Rome,  it  would  be 
found  in  the  munificence  with  which  the  natives  contribute 
habitually  for  its  support." 

With  this  statement  we  find  no  fault.  No  doubt  the  Sacra- 
ment of  Penance  produces  the  same  healing  effect  in  Ceylon  as 
in  other  lands.  No  doubt  they  are  happy  who  taste  its  salutary- 
power,  whether  in  Ceylon  or  elsewhere.  But  the  use  of  this 
sacrament  is  the  effect,  not  the  cause  of  conversion.  Men  seek 
the  tribunal  of  penance  when  their  consciences  are  enlightened ; 
they  abhor  it  while  enslaved  by  self-love.  They  come  to  it  of 
their  own  free  will,  moved  by  Divine  grace,  and  the  deep 
searchings  of  the  heart.  But  so  far  is  the  "overruling  in- 
fluence of  the  Confessional"  from  explaining  the  conversion  of 
pagans, — though  it  may  partly  account  for  their  subsequent 
constancy  and  virtue, — that  it  would  be  more  reasonable  to 
regard  it  as  an  additional  impediment  to  their  adoption  of  a 
religion  which  imposes,  upon  all  its  disciples  alike,  so  whole- 


398  CHAPTER  IV. 

some  but  mortifying  a  discipline.  The  confessional,  Sir  Emer- 
son Tennent  may  be  assured,  makes  men  excellent  Christians 
when  once  admitted  into  the  Church,  but  it  deters  no  small 
number  from  entering.  The  Sacrament  of  Penance  has  forti- 
fied the  Cingalese  in  the  practice  of  religion,  but  it  was  not  the 
Sacrament  of  Penance  which  first  led  them  to  embrace  it. 

The  second  suggestion  of  this  excellent  writer  has  less  claims 
to  our  respect,  it  is  the  "  gaudy  ceremonial"  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  he  says,  which  has  retained  the  Cingalese  in  her  com- 
munion. But  let  us  quote  his  own  words.  "  There  is  palpable 
evidence  to  establish  the  fact,  that  once  enrolled  as  Roman 
Catholics,  the  imagination  of  the  Cingalese  became  excited, 
and  their  tastes  permanently  captivated  by  striking  ceremonial 
and  pompous  pageantry."  This  is  a  common  Protestant  expla- 
nation of  the  triumphs  of  Catholic  missionaries.  It  has  been 
applied  to  their  work  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  It  was  this, 
says  Count  Hogendorp,*  which  fascinated  the  Japanese.  He 
says  it  boldly,  as  if  no  one  could  deny  it,  though  he  very  well 
knew  that  tens  of  thousands  of  Japanese  were  converted  by 
men  who  had  no  other  earthly  possessions  than  a  cassock,  a 
crucifix,  and  a  breviary.  And  what  is  true  of  Japan  is  equally 
true  of  every  other  pagan  land.  Does  Sir  Emerson  Tennent 
suppose  that  Eather  Joseph  Yaz,  for  example,  when  a  fugitive 
in  the  swamps  and  jungles  of  Ceylon,  converted  thirty  thousand 
idolaters  by  "  pompous  pageantry  ?"  Did  St.  Francis  Xavier, 
whose  ecclesiastical  apparatus  was  limited  to  a  hand-bell  and  a 
catechist,  convert  seven  hundred  thousand  souls  by  "  gaudy 
ceremonial  ?"  Did  the  venerable  John  de  Britto  gain  his  tens 
of  thousands  in  the  forests  of  Marava  by  the  splendors  of  an 
imposing  ritual  ?  Was  it  by  the  aid  of  such  accessories  that 
the  martyred  apostles  of  China  and  Corea,  whose  churches 
were  huts  and  their  vestments  rags,  won  their  triumphs  ?  Was 
it  "pageantry"  which  rescued  one  million  five  hundred  thou- 
sand South  American  Indians  from  the  worship  of  demons  ? 
Was  it  "  ritual"  which  caused  the  Holy  Name  to  be  adored  on 
the  banks  of  Lake  Huron,  by  the  borders  of  the  Ohio  and  the 
Mississippi,  and  again,  at  a  later  date,  on  the  plains  of  Oregon 
and  in  the  valleys  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  ?  Is  it  by  a  "  gaudy 
ceremonial"  that  the  Franciscans  are  at  this  moment  renewing 
their  ancient  victories  in  the  far  interior  of  Brazil,  or  the 
Lazarists  in  Syria,  or  the  Jesuits  in  Columbia,  or  the  Marists  in 
the  islands  of  the  Pacific?  What,  then,  shall  we  think  of  a 
cause  which  strives  to  cloak  its  eternal  humiliation,  and  to 
excuse  its  perpetual  misadventures,  by  a  plea  which  it  knows  to 

*  Coup  d'att  BUT  Java,  par  le  Comte  de  Hogendorp,  ch.  xi.,  p.  389. 


MISSIONS  IN   CEYLON.  399 

be  false,  and  by  attributing  the  conquests  which  it  vainly 
envies  to  means  which  it  was  absolutely  impossible  to  use,  and 
which  would  have  been  utterly  inadequate  and  ineffectual  even 
if  they  had  been  employed  ? 

The  solitary  explanation  which  Protestants  venture  to  sug- 
gest of  the  triumphs  of  Catholic  missionaries,  attested  in  every 
land  by  their  own  witnesses,  but  everywhere  denied  to  them- 
selves, deserves  further  consideration.  Let  us  examine  it  once 
for  all,  that  we  may  not  have  to  notice  it  again.  It  is  their 
only  argument ;  and  yet  it  is  at  variance,  not  only  with  his- 
torical facts,  but  even  with  the  universal  practice  of  man,  both 
heathen  and  Christian,  and  with  the  instincts  of  his  nature. 
And  first,  it  is  at  variance  with  facts. 

There  is  not  so  much  as  one  example,  literally  not  one,  in 
the  whole  history  of  missions,  of  the  heathen  being  attracted 
towards  the  Catholic  religion  simply  by  its  ritual  accompani- 
ments. Only  wilful  ignorance,  or  incurable  petulance,  could 
attribute  the  conversions  in  India  or  China  to  such  a  cause ; 
while  in  every  other  land  in  which  missionary  operations  are 
now  in  progress,  the  poverty  of  the  Catholic  evangelists  has 
become  a  proverb.  In  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  of  which  we 
shall  have  to  speak  hereafter,  we  hear  of  Catholic  missionaries 
wanting  even  the  common  necessaries  of  life,  and  of  their 
bishop  using  "the  backbone  of  a  whale  for  his  episcopal 
throne."  In  America,  even  at  the  present  day,  they  have  not 
always  food  to  eat;  though  in  some  provinces,  as  in  Texas, 
Oregon,  and  California,  it  is  habitually  of  the  coarsest  kind.  In 
South  America,  they  willingly  share  the  life  of  the  poor  Indian, 
who  honors  them  in  spite,  perhaps  because,  of  their  apostolic 
poverty ;  and  obeys  them,  as  his  fathers  obeyed  theirs,  with 
loving  reverence.  An  American  Protestant,  who  not  long  ago 
visited  the  valley  of  the  Amazon, — in  whose  distant  solitudes 
he  encountered  Catholic  missionaries  whom  he  describes,  with 
generous  enthusiasm,  as  the  very  ideal  of  apostolic  teachers, — 
makes  this  observation:  "I  was  amazed  at  the  poverty  of  the 
church,  and  determined,  if  I  ever  went  back,  to  appeal  to  the 
Roman  Catholics  of  the.  United  States  for  donations."*  And 
this  is  confirmed  by  an  English  officer,  who  traversed  the  same 
remote  regions,  where  he  found  Catholic  missionaries  honored 
with  "  the  greatest  respect  and  deference,"  even  by  natives  who 
"  showed  no  deference  to  any  one  but  the  Padre,"  but  where  he 
describes  almost  every  church  which  he  saw,  from  the  Andes 
to  Para,  as  little  better  than  "  a  huge  barn,."^  Yet  we  are 

*  Lieut.  Herndon's  Valley  of  the  Amazon,  ch.  xi.,  p.  225. 
f  Narrative  of  a  Journey  from  Lima  to  Para,  by  Lieut.  W.  Smyth,  ch.  viii., 
p.  148 ;  ch.  xi.,  p.  213. 


4:00  CHAPTER  IV. 

asked  to  believe  that  the  Church  wins  souls  to  God  only  by 
the  fascinations  of  a  "  gaudy  ceremonial." 

But  this  popular  explanation  contradicts,  not  only  the  facts 
which  are  admitted  and  proclaimed  by  every  competent  wit- 
ness, but  also  the  most  notorious  phenomena  of  heathen  life. 
The  pagan,  though  he  has  reared  many  a  gorgeous  temple,  and 
decorated  it  with  such  skill  as  his  knowledge  of  art  allows,  has 
never  even  conceived  the  idea  of  devising  a  specious  ceremonial 
as  a  substitute  for  a  more  active  and  intellectual  worship. 
Everywhere  he  retains,  in  spite  of  his  fall,  the  primitive  tra- 
ditions of  sacrifice,  prayer^  and  mortificat-ion.  The  very  Hindoo 
would  despise  the  imposture  of  a  hollow  ecclesiastical  pageant- 
ry. He  does  not  even  worship  idols,  if  we  may  believe  Prot- 
estant writers,  but  "symbols  of  the  Almighty's  power  ;"*  and 
Sir  William  Hooker  affirms  generally  of  the  Buddhist  devotee, 
that  he  "  attaches  no  real  importance  to  the  idol  itself. "f  His 
worship  is  dernonology,  but  still  it  is  worship.  He  comprehends, 
unlike  the  Protestant,  those  great  principles  which  the  latter 
alone  of  all  mankind  seem  to  repudiate  in  their  practice, — the 
sovereign  rights  of  the  Creator  over  his  creature,  the  obligation 
and  efficacy  of  penance  in  a  fallen  race,  and  the  principle  of 
sacrifice  as  the  essence  of  worship.  Hence  it  is  easier  to  convert 
him  than  the  children  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  who  have  lost  even 
these  primary.notions.  The  disciples  of  Buddha  and  Confucius, 
of  Brahma  and  Mahomet,  nauseate,  in  spite  of  their  spiritual 
penury,  the  sapless  food  of  pageantry  arid  ceremonial,  as  in- 
capable of  appeasing  the  famine  of  their  souls.  And  they  have 
shown,  in  many  a  land,  that  they  know  how  to  discriminate 
between  the  solemn  ritual  which  veils  and  symbolizes  the  august 
mysteries  of  the  Christian  Altar,  and  those  chill  forms  of  Prot- 
estantism which  symbolize  nothing;  dreary  accompaniments 
of  a  religion  whiph  rightly  eschews  ceremonial,  because  it  has 
nothing  to  hide  and  nothing  to  reveal,  because  it  begins  and 
ends  with  man,  and  contains  no  deeper  mystery  than  the  vary- 
ing accents  of  the  human  voice.  And  thus  it  comes  to  pass,  as 
we  have  read  in  this  chapter,  that  the  heathen  will  hurry  imme- 
diately from  a  Protestant  service  to  the  adoration  of  his  own 
divinities,  because  he  has  detected  that  in  the  former  there  was 
not  even  the  semblance  of  worship.  He  has  hardly  been  con- 
scious that  so  frigid  a  ceremony,  in  which  he  has  seen  only  a 
man  reading  out  of  a  book  to  other  men,  often  without  much 
sign  of  interest  on  either  side,  had  even  the  pretence  to  be  a 
religious  service.  He  has  perceived  in  it  nothing  but  a  tedious 
and  unmeaning  formality,  which  he  has  deemed,  like  the  Hindoo, 

*  The  Wonders  of  Elora,  cli.  xiv.,  p.  347. 

f  Himalayan  Journals,  vol.  i.,  ck.  xiv.,  p.  324. 


MISSIONS  IN  CEYLON.  401 

only  a  new  eccentricity  of  his  incomprehensible  rulers.  Yet 
he  has  confessed  at  the  first  glance,  on  entering  the  humblest 
Catholic  oratory,  that  there  men  were  offering  worship.  In 
both  cases  his  instinct  has  guided  him  aright. 

There  is  no  form  of  religion  in  the  world,  as  De  Maistre  has 
shown,  save  only  Protestantism  and  Islamism,  of  which  sacri- 
fice is  not  the  chief  act.  Even  u  to  the  Hindoo,"  as  a  learned 
English  writer  observes,  "  the  ideas  of  a  Sacrifice,  an  Incarna- 
tion, and  a  Trinity  are  already  familiar  :"*  so  that  when  the 
true  notion  of  these  divine  mysteries  has  been  unfolded  to  his 
consciousness  by  men  whose  manner  of  life  corresponded  with 
his  own  conception  of  what  befits  a  teacher  of  religion,  he  fell  on 
his  knees  and  adored,  confessing  the  supreme  majesty  of  that 
tremendous  Altar  and  Sacrifice  by  which,  as  the  last  of  the 
prophets  had  foretold,  the  name  of  God  should  become  "  great 
among  the  Gentiles"^  This  is  the  secret  of  conversion,  and 
not  the  ritual,  which  does  but  feebly  minister  to  it. 

Our  own  feelings  and  emotions,  however  pure,  and  our  own 
supplications,  however  ardent  and  unceasing,  can  never,  as 
Moeliler  observes,  be  worthy  of  God,  nor  constitute  an  act  of 
worship,  even  when  united  to  those  of  the  saints  and  angels, 
at  all  proportioned  to  His  Sovereign  claims.  It  is  only  Cath- 
olics who  are  able  to  offer  true  worship.  "  Christ,  the  Victim, 
in  our  worship,  is  the  copious  inexhaustible  source  of  deepest 
devotion,";);  and  one  Mass  infinitely  surpasses  in  efficacy  all  the 
prayers  that  ever  were,  or  ever  will  be,  offered  by  creatures. 
u  Thou  alone  knowest,"  said  St.  Gertrude  to  our  Blessed  Lord, 
"  with  what  energy  of  love  Thou  dost  daily  offer  Thyself  to  God 
the  Father  upon  the  altar."§ 

On  the  other  hand,  the  manifold  religions  of  the  so-called 
Reformation,  which  are  purely  human  both  in  their  origin  and 
in  their  rites,  and  upon  which  the  heathen  looks,  in  every  land, 
either  with  unmoved  apathy  or  with  angry  contempt,  are  thus 
described  even  by  their  most  eminent  advocates.  "  The  char- 
acteristic badge  of  the  Protestant  world,"  says  Menzel,  "  is 
religious  indifference.  Every  thing  depends  in  the  Protestant 
form  of  worship  upon  the  -preacher  for  the  time  being.  For  the 
Catholic,  all  his  churches  are  alike,  and  he  conducts  his  devo- 
tion without  the  priest,  as  it  makes  but  little  difference  what 
priest  officiates,"  since  all  offer  the  same  Adorable  Sacrifice. 

*  Life  of  Saber,  Emperor  of  ffindostan,  by  R.  M.  Caldecott,  Esq.,  p.  336. 

f  Malacliias  i.  11. 

|  Moehler. 

§  "  There  we  behold  the  Incomprehensible  Majesty  of  the  Most  High  com- 
passed with  a  worship  equal  to  Himself,  as  deep  and  broad  and  high  and  boun- 
tiful as  His  own  blessed  Self.  There  we  see  His  infinity  worshipped  infinite- 
ly  "  F.  Faber,  The  Creator  and  the  Creature,  ch.  iv.,  p.  226. 

27 


402  CHAPTER   IV. 

"  Hence  there  prevails,  if  I  may  so  say,  an  undisturbed  equa- 
nimity of  devotion  everywhere  among  the  Catholics.  Among 
the  Protestants,  however,  every  thing  depends  upon  the  personal 
character  of  the  preacher;  for  his  sake  alone,  and  only  when  he 
is  present,  do  people  go  to  church  ;  people  regard  him  alone, 
are  concerned  with  him  alone,  because  nothing  else  in  the 
Protestant  church  attracts  attention."*  He  only  stops  short  of 
the  confession,  which  could  not  be  expected  from  him,  that  this 
is  the  very  apostasy  predicted  of  old,  which  should  set  up  man 
in  the  place  of  God,  and  having  "  taken  away  the  Daily  Sacri- 
fice" should  bring  in  "  the  abomination  of  desolation. "f 

And  we  have  seen  that  such  an  impression  exists  even  in  the 
heathen  mind  with  respect  to  it.  Everywhere  they  doubt 
whether  Protestantism  be  really  a  religion  at  all.  "  They 
marvel,"  says  Mr.  Forbes,  "  whether  the  English  have  any 
religion."  The  Persians,  Mr.  Walpole  and  others  tell  us,  make 
the  same  remark.  The  Turks,  as  Mr.  Warburton  noticed,  call 
them  "  the  prayeiiess."  The  Chinese,  as  Dr.  Morrison  com- 
plained, "  are  irreverent,  and  laugh."  The  Kurds  claim  the 
English  as  co-religionists,  because  "  they  keep  no  fasts  and  say 
no  prayers  ;"  and  even  the  Druses,  the  atheists  of  Syria,  have 
learned  to  consider  the  Protestant  religion,  as  we  shall  be  told 
hereafter,  "  a  species  of  freemasonry  which  very  much  resembles 
their  own."  Why,  then,  does  Sir  Emerson  Tennent  attempt  to 
explain  the  success  of  Catholic  and  the  failure  of  Protestant 
missionaries  by  a  suggestion  which  deals  only  with  the  surface 
of  things,  arid  leaves  their  substance  untouched  ?  The  true  ex- 
planation lies  deeper.  It  is  not  a  question  of  ritual,  but  of 
doctrine.  The  Catholic  succeeds,  not  only  because  his  vocation, 
his  gifts,  and  his  faith,  are  all  from  God,  but  because  he  can 
erect  an  Altar  on  which  He  is  really  present  /  the  Protestant 
fails,  because  even  the  heathen  detect  that  he  is  only  a  man  like 
themselves,  and  though  he  affects  to  be  the  minister  of  a  Divine 
religion,  can  entertain  them  with  nothing  more  divine  than  the 
sound  of  his  own  voice. 

One  more  observation  we  may  offer,  before  finally  quitting  a 
subject  to  which  it  will  not  be  necessary  hereafter  to  recur.  If 
there  be  in  the  world  a  class  of  men  who,  in  a  certain  sense,  are 
absolutely  indifferent  to  "  ceremonial,"  although  obliged  to  use  it, 
and  who  in  celebrating  the  mysteries  of  their  holy  religion  are  al- 
most unconscious  of  its  presence,  the  Catholic  belongs  to  that  class. 

*  German  Literature,  by  Menzel,  vol.  i.,  p.  147  (ed.  Felton).  The  Duke  of 
Argyle  confesses,  in  a  work  which  was  probably  intended  to  be  a  defence  of 
his,  own  communion,  that  "  the  entire  devotion  of  the  congregation  is  depend' 
ent!  upon  the  will  of  the  preacher."  Quoted  by  Dollinger,  p.  194. 

f  Daniel  xi.  31. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  403 

Whether  he  assists  at  the  Holy  Sacrifice,  which  constitutes  the 
chief  act  of  his  religion,  or  at  any  other  of  the  Divine  offices 
which  attract  him  with  irresistible  power  to  the  house  of  prayer, 
his  eye  and  heart  are  fixed,  not  on  sensible  objects,  but  on  that 
Awful  Presence — stupendum  supra  omnia  miraculum — which 
at  one  time  is  veiled  in  the  tabernacle,  at  another  manifested  to 
the  gaze  of  the  faithful.  Vestments,  music,  and  incense — what- 
ever meets  the  eye  or  ear — he  hardly  notes,  for  there  is  some- 
thing there  which  speaks  to  the  soul,  and  taxes  all  its  powers. 
Let  the  accompanying  ceremonial  be  meagre  or  imposing,  it  is 
with  the  mind  of  a  Christian,  riot  of  an  artist,  that  he  marks  its 
presence  ;  all  he  asks  is,  that  it  shall  not  distract  him — the  rest, 
in  the  presence  of  those  stupendous  mysteries,  is  of  little  import. 
Like  Mary  and  Salome,  he  is  thinking  of  the  Body  which  he 
has  come  to  adore,  not  of  the  "  sweet  spices"  which  he  has 
brought  to  anoint  it.  He  provides,  indeed,  out  of  reverent  love, 
the  u  fine  linen,"  the  "  myrrh  and  aloes,"*  and  whatsoever  else 
his  devotion  may  inspire  or  the  Church  appoint,  for  in  this 
august  action  she  leaves  nothing  to  human  caprice  or  invention ; 
but  all  these  accessories  of  his  worship,  from  the  least  to  the 
greatest — the  cloud  of  incense,  the  blazing  lights,  the  swelling 
choir,  and  the  jewelled  robes — have  no  worth  and  no  significance 
but  as  offerings  to  Him  who  gives  them  all  their  value  by 
deigning  to  accept  them.  u  All  these  are  signs  and  symbols ; 
for  the  devotion  to  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is  the  adoration  of  the 
Uncreated  Majesty.  .  .  .  Verily  there  is  no  pomp  but  that  of  a 
believing  and  loving  heart,  which  pays  welcome  or  respectful 
court  to  this  Sacramental  King.  When  we  gaze,  therefore, 
upon  the  white  robes  of  the  Immaculate  King,  the  lights  and 
flowers  of  the  sanctuary  seem  to  fade  away,  and  there  open 
before  the  eyes  of  faith  interminable  regions  of  various  splendor 
and  consummate  beauty,  over  which  as  Man  He  is  at  this 
moment  wielding  His  far-reaching  sceptre  of  dominion. "f 

It  is  true  that  this  is  not  the  idea  which  Protestants  entertain 
of  Catholic  worship,  but  Protestants  are  hardly  competent 
judges  in  such  a  matter.  For  them, — who  consistently  despise 
"ceremonial,"  because  they  abolished  long  since  the  Daily 
Sacrifice,  and  cast  the  Altar  to  the  ground, — only  that  which 
meets  the  eye  and  ear  has  any  meaning,  and  even  this  they 
pervert  or  misconceive.  When  Mr.  Selkirk  enters  a  Catholic 
church  in  Ceylon,  and  tells  us,  "  of  course  I  could  not  under- 
stand the  service,"  he  accurately  represents  the  qualifications 
which  Protestants  bring  to  the  critical  examination  of  Catholic 

*  S.  John  xix.  39. 

f  Father  Faber,  The  Blessed  Sacrament,  book  iv.,  sec.  ii.,  p.  432. 


404  CHAPTER   IV. 

worship.  When  Dr.  Clark  notes  the  breathless  devotion  of  a 
congregation  in  Seville  cathedral,  and  then  adds  with  contempt, 
that  it  was  some  "picture,"  which  his  roving  glance  had 
detected,  that  they  were  really  worshipping,*  he  knew  not  that 
he  was  probably  the  only  person  in  that  silent  throng  who  was 
even  conscious  of  its  presence.  When  another  Episcopalian 
clergyman  goes  to  a  High  Mass  at  St.  Peter's,  celebrated  by 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  and  then  hurries  home  to  write  in  his 
journal,  "  Alas !  no  religious  feeling  could  for  a  moment  be  con- 
nected with  it  !"f  he  only  proves  that  he  was  looking  for  man, 
and  listening  for  man's  voice,  where  the  company  of  the  faithful 
saw  God  alone.J  It  is  ever  thus  with  spectators  of  this  kind. 
Like  the  Jews  who  thronged  the  streets,  going  up  to  the 
Passover,  they  see  a  child  seated  on  an  ass,  and  a  Maiden  by 
His  side ;  but  they  hurry  on,  and  know  not  that  it  is  the  Lord 
of  Heaven  and  His  Immaculate  Mother  whom  they  have  just 
passed  by.  The  "Sacramental  King"  is  as  effectually  hidden 
from  the  sectary,  as  the  Incarnate  God  was  from  the  Jew. 
They  wander  into  the  temple,  they  hear  the  music,  and  see  the 
lights, — for  they  can  exercise  sensual  functions, — but  of  what  is 
really  going  on  in  that  place,  what  mean  those  bended  knees 
and  downcast  eyes,  why  that  ministrant  is  covered  with  cloth  of 

fold,  and  demeans  himself  like  one  standing  in  the  court  of 
eaven, — all  this  is  as  completely  hidden  from  them  as  if  the 
Cross  had  never  been  lifted  up  on  Mount  Calvary,  nor  the  Pure 
Oblation  known  amongst  men.  And  so  they  smile  on  one 
another,  and  then  go  home,  like  Mr.  Selkirk,  to  talk  of  "  the 
mummeries  of  Popery."  So  utterly  unconscious  are  they  of 
that  ineffably  magnificent  Mystery  which  is  the  joy  and  life  of 
all  other  Christians,  and  so  effectually  have  they  banished  God 
even  from  their  temples,  in  order  to  enthrone  man  in  His  place, 
that  they  can  only  scoff  while  men  who  have  known  Him  from 
their  childhood  upwards  are  holding  their  breath  in  His 

*  Glimpses  of  the  Old  World,  lay  the  Rev.  I.  A.  Clark,  D.D. 

f  Memorial  of  the  Holy  Land,  by  the  Rev.  George  Fisk,  p.  25. 

\  Even  in  their  rare  contemplations  of  Heaven,  they  still  see  only  man.  "  In 
Protestant  Christendom,"  says  an  American  writer,  "  the  heart  of  the  millions  is 
not  reached  by  the  prospect  commonly  presented  to  them  of  eternal  life."  Foot- 
falls on  the  Boundary  of  another  World,  by  Robert  Dale  Owen,  formerly  Amer- 
ican Minister  to  Naples  ;  book  vi.,  ch.  i.,  p.  362.  "  The  recognition  of  friends  in 
the  next  world  ;"  "  The  renewal  of  intercourse  with  departed  friends;"  such 
are  the  customary  titles  of  Protestant  discourses  on  Heaven.  About  God  their 
theology  is  silent.  ' "  I  die  happy,"  said  a  well-known  Anglican  clergyman  of  the 
High  Church  school ;  "  lam  going  to  see  Hugh  James  Hose  and  Bishop  Otter" 
The  only  thing  which  they  never  think  about  in  their  dreams  of  Heaven  is  the 
Beatific  Vision !  The  Anglican  conception  of  union  with  God  seems  hardly  to 
rise  above  the  "  happy  hunting-grounds"  of  the  Red  Indian.  But  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  men  who  have  invented  altars  on  which  there  is  no  Tabernacle 
should  make  to  themselves  a  heaven  in  which  there  is  no  God. 


MISSIONS  IN  CEYLON.  405 

presence,  so  deeply  absorbed  and  entranced  by  that  coming 
amongst  them  of  the  Holy  One,  though  His  majesty  be 
clouded  by  the  sacramental  veils,  that  they  forget,  not  only 
music  and  incense  and  vestments,  but  even  the  intrusion  of 
these  jesting  critics,  who  with  unbent  knee  and  head  erect,  in 
all  the  wisdom  of  complacent  ignorance,  are  passing  sentence 
upon  them. 

If  it  were  possible  for  aliens  to  know,  for  one  brief  hour, 
what  is  the  presence  of  God  in  the  Church,  and  how  it  is 
manifested,  they  would  comprehend  at  last,  that  the  u  ceremo- 
nial" which  they  deem  so  important  an  element  in  Catholic 
worship  has  no  charm  either  to  beguile  Christians  or  to  convert 
the  heathen.  They  would  learn  also  to  rebuke  and  detest  the 
light  judgments  of  foolish  men,  whom  the  Prince  of  the  Apos- 
tles calls,  in  terrible  words,  which  only  an  Apostle  might  use, 
"  irrational  beasts,  blasphemin  gthose  things  which  they  know 
not."* 

And  now  we  may  conclude.  We  have  heard  enough  of  the 
history  of  religion  in  Ceylon,  and  of  Protestant  comments  upon 
it.  The  evidence  which  might  have  been  obtained  from  Cath- 
olic sources  has  been  excluded,  in  spite  of  its  interest  and 
importance,  because  it  is  proposed  in  these  volumes,  for  obvious 
reasons,  to  leave  historical  proofs  to  Protestants  alone.  It  is 
from  them  we  have  learned  how  the  native  Catholics  of  Ceylon 
have  resisted,  during  three  centuries,  both  the  savage  assaults 
of  persecution  and  the  politic  benevolence  of  heresy.  From 
them  also  we  have  learned  what  is  the  character  of  their  own 
converts,  and  how  exactly  they  resemble  those  whom  they 
have  gained  in  other  lands.  We  may  be  satisfied  with  their 
unwilling  testimony;  and  if  we  add,  in  conclusion,  a  few  words 
from  one  whose  name  is  honored  in  many  a  Christian  house- 
hold throughout  Ceylon,  it  is  only  as  an  example  of  the  reve- 
lations which  we  might  have  obtained  abundantly  from  similar 
sources. 

In  December,  1852,  Bishop  Bettachini,  the  Yicar  Apostolic  of 
Jaffna,  gave  the  following  account  of  occurrences  within  his  own 
vicariate,  which  includes  only  the  northern  portion  of  the 
island.  u  The  number  of  conversions,  of  Gentiles  and  Protest- 

*  Peter  ii.  12.  Since  "  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is  the  greatest  work  of  God,  the 
most  perfect  picture  of  Him  and  the  most  complete  representation  of  JeSus, 
it  must  needs  follow  that  it  is  the  very  life  of  the  Church,  being  not  only  the 
gift  of  Jesus,  but  the  very  living  Jesus  Himself.  ...  It  is  the  central  devotion 
of  the  Church.  All  others  gather  round  it,  and  group  themselves  there  as  sat- 
ellites ;  for  others  celebrate  His  mysteries,  this  is  Himself.  It  is  the  universal 
devotion.  No  one  can  be  without  it,  in  order  to  be  a  Christian.  How  can  a 
man  be  a  Christian  who  does  not  worship  the  living  presence  of  Christ?' 
Father  Faber,  The  Blessed  Sacrament,  book  iv.,  sec.  vii.,  p.  541. 


406  CHAPTER   IV. 

ants,  during  the  past  year,  amounts  to  five  hundred  and  one." 
Of  Trincomalee,  he  says:  "It  is  the  residence  of  a  Lombard 
priest,  Dom  Yincent  Cassinelli,  who  is  much  esteemed  by  all 
parties.  A  considerable  number  of  conversions  from  Prot- 
estantism is  made  here  every  year,  so  many  indeed,  that  the 
Methodists,  who  had  a  station  here,  have  been  obliged  to  give 
up  the  contest  for  want  of  proselytes."  Of  Chilan,  this  is"  his 
report :  "  A  large  church,  with  three  naves,  is  in  course  of 
erection  here,  sufficiently  spacious  to  accommodate  five  thou- 
sand persons."  There  are  no  contributions  from  missionary 
societies,  nor  gifts  from  official  patrons,  but  religious  zeal  sup- 
plies their  want.  "Men  and  women,"  says  the  bishop,  "boys 
and  girls,  have  set  to  work  with  incredible  zeal.  The  Judge  of 
the  district,  who  is  a  convert  from  Protestantism,  has  given 
upwards  of  forty  pounds  as  his  subscription.  The  chief  merit 
of  the  work  is  due  to  Dom  Froilano  Oruna,  a  Spanish  Bene- 
dictine, who  has  acquired  marked  influence  over  the  popula- 
tion." Of  the  mission  of  Yaligamma  close  to  Jaffna,  the  bishop 
notices,  that  though  the  Protestants  have  immense  institutions, 
"an  extensive  printing  establishment,  a  large  college  for  the 
education  of  boys,  a  large  seminary  for  girls,  in  both  of  which 
pupils  are  received  gratuitously,  ninety  schools,  two  doctors, 
eight  or  nine  ministers,  and  several  catechists," — who  are  all 
maintained  by  subscriptions  from  England  and  America, — the 
results,  by  their  own  admission,  have  been  so  nugatory,  that 
"it  is  probable  they  will  soon  disappear  altogether."  Lastly, 
he  thus  mentions  their  attempts  to  corrupt  the  Catholic  natives, 
by  offers  of  books  and  money.  "  When  the  Protestant  minis- 
ters visit  them,  to  distribute  their  books  to  them,  these  good 
Christians  not  only  reject  with  contempt  the  poison  offered  to 
them,  but  often  confound  the  distributors  by  various  embar- 
rassing questions,  which  render  the  apostles  of  error,  who  are 
at  a  loss  to  answer  them,  objects  of  scorn."* 

The  facts  referred  to  by  the  bishop  in  these  extracts  are  once 
more  confirmed,  in  1860,  by  an  authority  who  shall  be  our  last 
witness.  "From  the  latest  published  reports  of  the  Protestant 
missionary  societies,  it  appears  that  the  Protestant  native 
converts,  of  all  sects,  in  the  whole  island,  amount  only  to  four 
thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty-nine."  And  even  this  scanty 
number  is  constantly  diminishing,  in  spite  of  the  various 
attractions  held  out  to  them.  Thus  in  the  single  vicariate  of 
Columbo,  in  the  course  of  the  year  1857,  four  hundred  and 
eleven  adult  Protestants  were  received  into  the  Church ;  in 
1858,  four  hundred  and  twenty-two ;  and  in  1859,  two  hundred 

*  Annals,  vol.  xiv.,  p.  164. 


MISSIONS   IN   CEYLON.  407 

and  eighty-nine  ;  making  a  total  of  one  thousand  one  hundred 
and  twenty-two  adult  Protestant  converts  in  three  successive 
years,  in  one  only  of  the  ecclesiastical  provinces  into  which 
Ceylon  is  divided.* 

Once  more  we  have  applied  the  divine  rule,  By  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them.  Let  the  reader,  who  will  have  observed 
that  all  our  evidence  has  been  derived  from  Protestants,  con- 
demned to  awaken  the  conscience  of  others  by  publishing  facts 
which  produced  no  effect  upon  themselves,  draw  his  own 
conclusions.  It  is  no  new  thing  that  Almighty  God  should 
employ  the  enemies  of  the  Church  to  proclaim  their  own 
humiliation  and  her  glory;  but  it  seems  to  be  His  will,  not 
only  that  the  hopeless  sterility  of  Protestantism,  in  spite  of 
the  talents  and  even  the  virtues  of  some  of  its  professors,  should 
be  everywhere  manifest,  but  that  everywhere  there  should  be  a 
Protestant  historian  to  detect  and  record  it.  They  will  accom- 
pany us  in  all  the  lands  which  we  have  still  to  visit,  and  in 
each  they  will  tell  us  the  same  tale — of  wealth  idly  wasted, 
and  labor  leading  to  nothing.  Everywhere  they  find  God 
absent  from  their  councils ;  everywhere  they  proclaim  the 
dreary  void  which  that  absence  creates.  Missionaries,  tourists, 
and  officials,  go  forth  from  England  or  America,  in  the  gayety 
of  their  hearts,  to  chronicle  the  baneful  influence  of  the  ancient 
faith,  and  to  sing  the  triumphs  of  the  new  ;  and  when  at  last 
their  books  are  published,  the  world  is  amazed  to  find,  that 
they  have  unconsciously  obeyed  the  inspiration  of  God  rather 
than  of  their  own  hearts,  and  that  the  glories  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church  are  divulged  by  her  most  unscrupulous  enemies, 
and  the  impotence  of  Protestantism  elaborately  proved  by  the 
most  enthusiastic  of  its  own  disciples. 

*  Madras  Catholic  Directory  for  1860,  pp.  178-180. 


CHAPTER  V. 


MISSIONS    IN    THE    ANTIPODES 


WE  have  now,  for  the  first  time,  to  speak  of  regions  in  which 
by  a  singular  exception,  the  Protestant  preceded  the  Catholic 
missionary.  In  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  during  a  long 
course  of  years,  the  agents  of  English  missionary  societies  con- 
ducted their  operations  in  the  presence  of  friendly  witnesses 
alone.  No  competitors  were  there  to  impede  their  free  action, 
no  rivals  to  dispute  their  influence.  Three  nations  of  pagan 
and  uncivilized  men,  whose  lands  seemed  to  have  long  invited 
a  new  possessor,  had  opened  their  gates  to  England  and  her 
emissaries.  "With  unlimited  resources,  and  backed  by  the 
whole  power  of  one  of  the  greatest  empires  on  earth,  they  had 
only  to  reign  in  peace,  and  command  these  deserts  to  revive 
and  flourish,  like  a  field  on  which  the  dew  of  heaven  has  de- 
scended. Here,  at  length,  was  an  opportunity  of  showing 
what  the  "  reformed  religion"  could  effect,  in  a  sphere  where 
its  dominion  was  supreme  and  un  con  tested,  towards  the  conver- 
sion of  the  Gentiles.  It  had  often  boasted  its  power  :  the  mo- 
ment had  arrived  to  test  it.  Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  Tas- 
mania were  added  to  the  long  catalogue  of  Britain's  colonial 
conquests  ;  let  us  see  whether  she  has  played  in  them  a  nobler 
part  than  in  India  or  Ceylon. 

We  should  only  echo  the  complaint  of  her  own  sons,  if  we 
were  to  say,  that  of  two  out  of  the  three  England  has  made  a 
moral  cesspool.  But  this  familiar  reproach,  which,  on  the  one 
hand,  is  harsh  and  unjust  for  want  of  due  limitation,  on  the 
other,  takes  no  account  of  far  more  real  crimes  than  those  which 
it  too  hastily  condemns.  It  was  surely  no  unpardonable  offence, 
unless  we  deny  the  fundamental  maxim  of  Roman  jurispru- 
dence, to  banish  from  the  society  which  they  had  outraged  the 
felon  and  the  homicide.  But  it  was  cruel  and  impious  to  treat 
these  unhappy  outcasts  like  brutes  condemned  to  the  slaughter, 
and  to  provide  for  them,  in  the  land  of  their  exile,  only  shambles 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  ANTIPODES.  409 

and  an  axe.  More  than  any  of  the  sons  of  men  they  needed 
— for  it  was  all  which  now  remained  to  them — the  hope  of 
reconciliation,  and  the  promise  of  the  future.  Their  bodies  they 
had  forfeited,  and  could  henceforth  move  hand  or  foot  only  at 
the  bidding  of  the  taskmaster ;  but  their  souls  were  free,  and 
in  that  freedom  they  could  still  seek  after  union  with  God.  still 
propitiate  a  Judge  who  wipes  away  the  tears  which  He  has 
caused  to  flow,  and  in  the  very  act  of  chastising  has  already 
begun  to  pardon.  Yet  the  first  ship  which  bore  away  its  freight 
of  despair, — of  bruised  hearts,  and  woful  memories,  and  fearful 
expectations, — would  have  left  the  shores  of  England  without 
even  a  solitary  minister  of  religion,  but  for  the  timely  remon- 
strance of  a  private  individual !  The  civil  authorities  deemed 
their  work  complete  when  they  had  given  the  signal  to  raise 
the  anchor  and  unloose  the  sails — the  rest  was  no  concern  of 
theirs. 

Half  a  century  later,  the  same  disgraceful  fact  recurred. 
u  An  oversight  equally  remarkable  took  place,"  says  Judge 
Burton  in  1840,  u  upon  the  recent  expedition  to  Port  Essing- 
ton."  On  this  occasion  also,  "  H.  M.  8.  Alligator  sailed  from 
England  with  upwards  of  five  hundred  souls,  unprovided  with 
any  minister  of  religion."* 

But  this  is  not  all.  In  Australia,  as  in  India,  they  neither 
provided  ministers  themselves,  nor  would  suffer  others  to  supply 
the  defect.  Among  the  emigrants  to  the  new  continent  were 
some  of  those  children  of  Ireland,  whom  Providence  seems  to 
have  dispersed  through  all  the  homes  of  the  Saxon  race,  that 
they  might  one  day  rekindle  amongst  them  the  light  of  faith 
which  their  own  long  misfortunes  have  never  been  able  to 
quench.  To  these  exiles  it  was  necessary  to  convey  the  succors 
of  religion.  The  first  Catholic  priest  who  arrived  in  Australia 
on  his  mission  of  charity,  and  whom  the  policy  of  self-interest 
should  have  persuaded^  the  authorities  to  greet  with  eager 
welcome,  was  treated  with  derision,  and  "was  directed,"^ as 
one  of  his  most  energetic  successors  relates,  "  to  produce  his 
6  permission,'  or  hold  himself  in  readiness  for  departure  by  the 
next  ship."f  He  was  alone,  and  therefore  a  sate  victim ;  and 
though,  as  the  latest  historian  of  the  colony  observes,  ''his 
ministrations  would  have  been  not  less  valuable  in  a  social 
than  in  a  religious  point  of  view,  he  was  seized,  put  in  prison, 
and  subsequently  sent  back  to  England,";):  because  his  presence 
was  irksome  to  men  who  seem  to  have  felt  instinctively  that 

*  State  of  Religion  and  Education  in  JV.  S.  Wales,  p.  72. 

\  A  Reply  to  Judge  Burton,  by  W.  Ullathorne,  D.D.,  p.  10. 

j  History  of  New  South  Wales,  by  Roderick  Flanagan,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  215. 


410  CHAPTER  V. 

his  proffered  ministry  was  the  keenest  rebuke  of  their  own 
cruelty  and  profaneness. 

But  we  need  not  pursue  the  details  of  a  history  which  is 
absolutely  uniform  from  its  opening  to  its  finat  chapter,  and 
which  contains  only  two  facts — the  one,  that  not  even  a  solitary 
native  of  Tasmania  or  New  Holland  has  ever  been  converted 
to  the  faith ;  the  other,  that  the  aboriginal  tribes  of  the  first 
have  utterly  ceased  to  exist  under  British  rule,  while  those  of 
the  second  are  rapidly  dying  out.  Such,  as  we  shall  see  more 
fully  hereafter,  has  been  the  invariable  destiny  of  the  savage, 
in  Australia,  in  North  America,  in  South  Africa,  in  Polynesia 
— wherever  he  has  found  Protestant  masters ;  while  in  the 
Philippines,  in  Oceanica,  and  in  Western  and  Southern  America, 
he  has  dwelt  in  peace  and  prosperity,  nay,  has  increased  and 
multiplied  under  Catholic  rulers.  Let  us  briefly  trace  this 
history  in  Australia,  and  the  influence  of  Protestant  missions, 
conducted  with  every  advantage  which  power  and  wealth  could 
impart,  upon  her  aboriginal  tribes. 

The  subject  is  meagre,  and  need  not  detain  us  long.  A  few 
characteristic  facts  will  suffice.  They  are  Protestant  witnesses 
who  will  tell  us  once  more  the  familiar  tale  of  worldly  and 
covetous  missionaries,  of  the  immorality  of  the  English  colo- 
nists, of  money  squandered  in  vain,  and  of  final  and  admitted 
failure.  Dr.  Lang,  the  Protestant  historian  of  New  South 
Wales — who  reports,  in  1852,  '*  There  is  as  yet  no  well-authenti- 
cated case  of  the  conversion  of  a  black  native  to  Christianity" — 
will  assure  us  that  this  result  is  not  due  to  insufficiency  of  tem- 
poral resources.  "In  the  year  1828,"  he  says,  "  when  the  whole 
population  did  not  exceed  thirty-six  thousand  five  hundred  and 
ninety-eight  (of  whom  about  one-half  belonged  to  other  commu- 
nions), the  cost  of  the  Episcopalian  establishment  of  the  colony 
exceeded  twenty-two  thousand  pounds  !"  And  apparently  even 
this  failed  to  satisfy  the  class  amongst  whom  it  was  distributed. 
"  Accounts  of  the  most  discreditable  character  were  trumped  up 
by  individual  chaplains,  who  had  ample  salaries  and  allowances 
of  every  description  besides.  In  this  way  the  two  Episcopalian 
chaplains  in  Sydney  presented, one  an  account  for  seven  hundred 
pounds,  and  the  other  an  account  for  five  hundred  pounds, 
which  were  both  paid  them,  in  addition  to  all  their  regular 
and  accustomed  demands."*  Archdeacon  Scott,  he  says,  after 
failing  in  business  in  England,  then  acting  as  a  clerk  or  secre- 
tary, finally  merged  into  an  ecclesiastical  dignitary,  and  was 
sent  out  with  a  salary  of  two  thousand  pounds.  And  though 

*  History  of  New  South  Wales,  by  John  Dunmore  Lang,  D.D.,  vol.  ii.,  ch, 
xi.,  p.  465  (1852). 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  411 

these  revelations  may  be  fairly  attributed  to  sectarian  animosity, 
this  Presbyterian  witness  is  at  all  events  perfectly  candid,  and 
does  not  conceal  "  the  cold-blooded  and  unnatural  indifference 
which,  I  am  sorry  to  acknowledge,  the  Church  of  Scotland 
evinced  at  that  period,  and  for  many  years  thereafter,  to  the 
moral  and  religious  welfare  of  her  people  in  the  colonies." 

Perhaps  the  excessive  opulence  of  the  Episcopalian  clergy 
may  partly  account  for  certain  characteristic  facts  which  we  may 
notice  at  once  for  the  sake  of  getting  rid  of  them.  When  Dr. 
Broughton,  who  was  their  bishop,  was  examined  by  a  committee 
of  the  House  of  Commons  as  to  his  success  in  converting  the 
aborigines,  the  following  opinion  was  elicited  from  him :  "  Have 
you  found  it  absolutely  impossible  to  instil  into  their  minds  any 
adequate  idea  of  the  Deity  and  of  Christianity?  Of  Chris- 
tianity, certainly,  I  should  say."*  It  is  only  fair  to  the  Wesleyan 
witnesses  before  the  same  committee  to  say,  that  they  emphati- 
cally repudiated  this  opinion,  and  apparently  with  reason.  A 
scientific  writer,  who  had  examined  the  question  as  a  physiolo- 
gist, gives  his  verdict  in  favor  of  the  Wesleyans.  ''Examina- 
tion and  comparison  have  shown,"  he  says,  alluding  to  the 
physical  characteristics  of  the  Australian  race,  "  that  instead  of 
peculiarities,  strong  analogies  are  found  to  the  skulls  of  white 
men."f  And  another  capable  witness  confirms  this  dictum  of 
science  by  the  conclusive  fact,  that  there  was  not  wanting  evi- 
dence of  distinct  "religious  traditions"  among  thein.J 

Indeed,  a  large  number  of  writers  on  Australia  appear  anxious 
to  refute  the  discreditable  plea  of  Dr.  Broughton.  "  They  are  as 
apt  and  intelligent,"  says  Sir  George  Grey,  who  had  carefully 
studied  their  habits  and  character,  "  as  any  other  race  of  men 
I  am  acquainted  with."§  "Their  belief  in  spirits  is  universal," 
we  are  told  by  Mr.  Angas.  "Certain  it  is,"  says  Mr.  Marjori- 
banks,  "that  they  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and 
the  existence  of  evil  spirits."!  "  The  very  term  by  which  they 
denote  the  evil  spirit,"  says  Dr.  Latham,  "  belongs  to  the 
Oceanic  Pantheon  in  general.';T  "There  is  no  doubt  whatever," 
observes  M.  de  Eienzi,  after  careful  investigation,  "  that  the 
Australians  are  capable  of  being  civilized."**  "  There  is  some 
reason  to  think,"  adds  Mr.'  Bennett,  "that  the  aborigines  believe 


*  Parliamentary  Papers,  vol.  vii.,  p.  14,  Cf.  p.  201. 

f  Physical  Description  of  N.  8.  Wales,  by  P.  E.  de  Strzelecki,  sec.  vii.,  p.  335. 
t  Savage  Life  and  Scenes  in  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  by  George  French 
Angas,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  224. 

£  Journals  of  Two  Expeditions  in  Australia,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  374. 
f  Travels  in  New  South  Wales,  by  Alexander  Marjoribanks,  ch.  iv.,  p.  92. 
1  The  Ethnology  of  the  British  Colonies,  ch.  v.,  p.  222. 
**  Oceanic,  par  M.  G.  L.  Domeny  de  Rienzi,  tome  iii.,  p.  517. 


412  CHAPTER  V. 

in  the  metempsychosis  ;"*  an  opinion  confirmed  both  by  Mr. 
Parker,  who  held  the  office  of  Protector  of  Aborigines,  and  by 
Mgr.  Salvado,  who  has  dwelt  among  the  tribes  of  the  interior, 
and  gives  conclusive  proofs  of  their  remarkable  aptness. f  "  The 
work  of  evangelizing  them  may  be  unpromising,"  says  Mr. 
Young,  a  Wesleyan  missionary,  "but  it  presents  no  greater 
difficulties  than  those  which,  in  other  parts  of  the  heathen 
world,  have  been  overcome.";):  Finally,  Mr.  Gerstaecker,  an 
experienced  German  traveller,  in  proving  the  "abilities  and 
talents  "  of  the  Australian  native,  gives  this  decisive  example. 
He  visited  a  school,  in  which  native  children  not  only  "  read 
the  New  Testament  with  a  great  deal  more  expression  and 
emphasis  than  children  commonly  exhibit  in  English  village 
schools,"  but  afterwards  gave  an  explanation  "which  proved 
the  excellent  memory  of  the  children. "§  Here  was  surely  some 
material  to  work  upon.  Dr.  Broughton,  however,  had  decided 
that  he  and  his  wealthy  colleagues  could  do  nothing  with  such 
people.  We  may,  therefore,  put  aside  the  Episcopalian  clergy, 
but  not  without  noticing  two  facts  which  identify  them  with 
their  class  in  every  other  land. 

Dr.  Broughton,  who  thought  the  Australian  incapable  of 
receiving  truths  which  are  addressed  equally  to  every  creature 
of  God,  was  more  solicitous  about  the  progress  of  the  Catholic 
religion  in  New  South  "Wales  than  about  the  conversion  of 
savages;  and  distinguished  himself  chiefly  by  sending  home 
fretful  protests  against  the  "  schismatical"  Archbishop  of  Syd- 
ney, for  using  a  title  which  Dr.  Polding  had  received  from  the 
successor  of  St.  Peter,  and  Dr.  Broughton  from  the  successor 
of  Henry  YIH.  The  Catholic  prelate  took  no  notice  of  his 
invectives,  which  hardly  provoked  any  other  comment  than  the 
remark  of  a  French  writer  in  the  Correspondent^  that  "  an 
Anglican  charging  a  Catholic  with  schism  is  like  Ishmael  call- 
ing Isaac  a  bastard. "|| 

*  Wanderings  in  N.  8.  Wales,  by  George  Bennett,  Esq.,  F.L.S.,  F.R.C.S., 
vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  131. 

f  Memoir es  historiques  sur  VAustralie,  par  Mgr.  Rudesindo  Salvado,  3me 
partie,  p.  258  (ed.  Falcimagne,  1854). 

\  The  Southern  World,  ch.  v.,  p.  Ill  (1854). 

§  Voyage,  &c.,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  ii.,  p. 88.  In  1836  "the  missionaries  at  Welling- 
ton Valley  reported  that  amongst  the  blacks  there  was  a  general  idea  of  a 
Creator,"  that  "  they  believed  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,"  and  also  in  "  an 
order  of  beings  superior  to  man."  Flanagan,  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  515. 

I  The  people  of  the  colony,  however,  presented  a  petition  to  the  Queen  in 
1841,  condemning  his  "  spirit  of  sectarianism,"  and  "'praying  the  removal  of 
that  personage  from  the  Legislative  Council ;"  and  when  the  Catholic  cathedral 
was  projected  in  Sydney,  "Protestants  subscribed  liberally,  and  the  Governor, 
with  the  advice  of  all  the  magistrates,  promised  to  give  from  the  public  cof- 
fers a  sum  equivalent  to  that  which  might  thenceforward  be  made  up  by 
private  donations."  Flanagan,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  223 ;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  31. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  413 

The  second  fact  referring  to  Dr.  Broughton  and  his  colleagues 
is  the  following.  It  appears  that  there  was,  not  long  ago,  a 
sort  of  conference  of  Protestant  bishops  at  Sydney,  at  which  a 
majority  expressed  a  quasi-official  opinion  in  favor  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Baptism,  the  adoption  of  Avhich  they  cautiously  recom- 
mended to  their  ecclesiastical  inferiors.  The  "  clergy  of  Aus- 
tralia," however,  immediately  resolved  that  u  the  construction 
put  by  the  bishops,  if  imposed,  would  be  tantamount  to  a  new 
article  of  faith  I"  The  laity  also  protested  against  the  innova- 
tion, while  the  clergy  of  Van  Dieman's  Land  solemnly  address- 
ed their  bishop  to  record  "  their  regret,  that  after  the  decision 
of  the  Privy  Council,  and  two  Archbishops,"  he  should  entertain 
such  unsound  views.*  In  the  presence  of  such  facts  we  have 
surely  no  reason  to  marvel  when  Count  Strzelecki  informs  us, 
that  "  the  attempts  to  civilize  and  christianize  the  aborigines 
have  utterly  failed.'1 '\ 

When  we  have  mentioned  one  or  two  examples  of  the  efforts 
made,  and  of  their  results,  the  tale  will  be  complete.  "  Efforts 
prodigal  indeed  in  zeal  and  money,"  says  Colonel  Mundy, 
speaking  of  the  Australian  native,  "  have  been  made  to  civilize 
and  christianize  him,  but  they  have  hitherto  met  with  signal 
failure."  The  colonel  then  quotes  a  missionary  report,  refer- 
ring to  "  the  greatest  of  all  the  mission  stations  on  this  con- 
tinent," at  which  large  sums  had  been  expended,  during  nine 
successive  years,  in  feeding,  instructing,  and  preaching T;o  the 
natives.  "  Among  all  those  young  men,"  says  the  report  of 
the  year  1842,  "  who  for  years  past  have  been  more  or  less 
attached  to  the  mission,  there  is  only  one  who  affords  some 
satisfaction  and  encouragement.";):  And  the  results  of  all  this 
care,  and  of  an  education  prolonged  through  many  years,  are 
still  more  darkly  depicted  by  Mr.  Hood,  in  the  following  year, 
1843.  "  It  is  said  that  cases  have  occurred  of  persons  who, 
when  young,  had  been  educated  at  the  mission,  murdering 
their  children  in  after  years."§  M.  de  Rienzi  mentions  the 
case  of  one  who  was  brought  up  from  childhood  by  a  benevolent 
Englishman,  sent  to  England,  and  exhibited  at  many  public 
meetings  as  a  specimen  of  the  success  of  Protestant  education  ; 

*  New  Zealand  and  its  Inhabitants,  by  the  Rev.  Richard  Taylor,  M.A.,  ch. 
xx.,  p.  304.  A  Wesleyan  minister  relates,  with  undisguised  complacency,  in 
1862,  that  "  the  bishop  was  sadly  chagrined  when  I  was  in  Sydney,  to  find  by 
a  legal  decision  against  him  in  the  highest  colonial  court,  that  he  could  be 
excluded  by  an  objecting  clergyman  from  a  church  in  which  it  had  been  pub- 
lished the  bishop  would  hold  a  service  for  ordination !"  Dr.  Jobson,  Aus- 
tralia, ch.  vi.,  p.  163.  Anglican  church  discipline  does  not  seem  to  improve 
in  the  colonies. 

•I-  Physical  Description,  &c.,  sec.  vii.,  p.  350. 

j:  Colonel  Mundy's  Australasian  Colonies,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  241. 

§  Australia  and  the  East,  by  John  Hood,  ch.  vii.,  p.  207. 


4:14  CHAPTER  V. 

but  who,  on  his  return  to  the  colony,  fled  to  his  native  forests, 
where  he  lived  in  a  state  of  nudity,  and  was  finally  executed 
for  rape.*  "  Numberless  instances  are  quoted,"  says  a  Wes- 
leyan  minister  in  1862,  "of  education  and  employment  of  the 
aborigines  by  European  colonists ;  but  almost  in  every  case 
the  native  child  or  servant  has  gone  back  to  the  wild  tribe  to 
which  he  or  she  belonged,  and  sunk  back  into  barbarism. "f 

"  No  instance  has  been  known,"  says  another  eye-witness, 
in  1849,  "  of  their  receiving  the  tenets  of  Christianity."  Yet, 
he  adds,  as  if  he  desired  to  prove  that  their  instructors  were 
only  human  agents,  to  whom  God  had  refused  every  super- 
natural gift,  that  some  of  them  were  educated  with  so  much 
success  as  "  to  act  as  policemen,  and  are  very  efficient.":): 

Another  expensive  trial  was  made  in  the  mission  of  Lake 
Macquarie.  "The  great  cost  of  this  mission,"  says  Dr.  Lang, 
"  and  the  peculiarly  unpromising  character  of  the  field,  very 
speedily  induced  the  society  to  abandon  it."§ 

In  1837  the  mission  at  Moreton  Bay  was  established  under 
two  German  missionaries  "  and  eighteen  lay  missionaries." 
Though  aided  by  the  government,  it  was  only  saved  in  1842 
from  extinction  by  "an  appeal  to  the  public,"  and  twenty 
years  later  it  was  once  more  admitted  that  its  results  were 
"  inappreciable."] 

Another  case  at  Lake  Colac,  in  which  the  Wesleyans  were 
agents,  is  thus  described  by  Mr.  Byrne,  in  1848  :  "  An  exten- 
sive tract  of  land,  and  annual  assistance  in  the  shape  of  a 
money-grant,  was  afforded  by  the  government,  the  total  amount 
of  the  latter,  since  1836,  approaching  five  thousand  pounds. 
But  here  again  the  Executive  recognized  the  inutility  of  all 
attempts  for  the  civilization  of  the  aborigines ;  and  the  grant 
to  the  Colac  mission  is  now  only  one  hundred  pounds  per 
annum,  a  sum  that  merely  enables  it,  under  the  superintendence 
of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Tuckfield,  to  linger  out  its  existence  without  a 
hope  of  any  advantage  being  obtained  by  it."Tf  Indeed,  Mr. 
Young,  a  Wesleyan  minister,  confesses,  six  years  later,  that 
"  the  work  had  to  a  great  extent  been  abandoned  as  a  hopeless 
undertaking." 

"  In  Victoria,  many  thousands  of  pounds  were  expended  in 
forming  'establishments  for  the  moral  and  religious  instruction 
of  the  native  youth.  They  were  well  clothed  and  lodged,  &c. 

*  Oceanic,  tome  iii.,  p.  507. 
f  Dr.  Jobson,  Australia,  &c.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  200. 

J  Rambles  and  Observations  in  N.  8.  Wales,  by  Joseph  Phipps  Townsend, 
ch.  vi.,  p.  103. 

§  History  ofN.  8.  Wales,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  507. 
r  Flanagan,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  57. 
l"  Twelve  Years'  Wanderings,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  p.  867. 


MISSION'S  IN  THE   ANTIPODES.  415 

but  the  result  was  a  sad  and  painful  failure.  The  worthy 
instructors  were  baffled  at  every  point,  and  after  nearly  nine 
years  of  ardent  efforts  in  the  Christian  cause,  they  were  com- 
pelled to  abandon  the  field  in  despair."  The  only  effect,  this 
friendly  witness  adds,  of  all  the  feeding,  clothing,  and  instruct- 
ing, was  this  :  "The  natives  became  fat,  lazy,  and  disobedient, 
and  declared  most  emphatically  that  '  too  much  blendy  hard 
work  was  no  good  for  blackfella ;  irn  only  good  for  whitefella, 
cos  he  blendy  like  it.'  "  * 

As  early  as  the  year  1842,  "the  expenses  of  every  mission 
to  the  aborigines  within  the  colony"  (New  South  Wales),  says 
one  of  its  historians,  "  amounted  to  fifty-one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  seven  pounds.  We  must  honestly  say  that  little 
or  no  value  has  been  rendered  for  it."  He  quotes  also  a  mis- 
sionary who  made  the  following  singular  report :  "  In  whatever 
direction  I  go,  even  at  a  distance  of  forty  or  sixty  miles,  the 
parents  conceal  their  children  as  soon  as  they  hear  that  a  mis- 
sionary approaches  their  camp ;  and  when  I  have  come  upon 
them  by  surprise,  I  have  the  grievance  to  observe  these  little 
ones  running  into  the  bushes  or  into  the  bed  of  the  river  with 
the  utmost  rapidity."f 

But  these  discouraging  facts  were  not  always  so  candidly 
admitted.  If  the  natives  avoided  the  missionaries,  the  latter 
did  not  on  that  account  abandon  their  lucrative  functions.  A 
few  years  ago  the  colonial  journals  related,  with  appropriate 
comments,  the  case  of  a  Protestant  clergyman,  who  regularly 
received  during  some  years  a  grant  towards  the  support  of  a 
mission  which  he  was  supposed  to  be  conducting  in  the  interior, 
and  of  the  progress  of  which  he  forwarded  annual  reports,  but 
who  was  accidentally  discovered  at  last  to  be  engaged  in  the 
peaceful  pursuits  of  agriculture,  which  his  stipend  as  a  mission- 
ary had  sensibly  aided,  and  to  be  the  pastor  of  a  "  mission" 
which  had  no  existence  whatever,  except  in  his  own  ingenious 
reports. 

We  must  not  conclude  without  citing  at  least  one  official 
testimony  to  the  failure  of  all  missionary  projects  in  Australia. 
In  1849  a  committee  of  the  colonial  council  was  appointed 
"to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  the  aborigines."  After 
reporting  that  all  former  schemes  had  proved  abortive,  "  they 
recommended  the  abolition  of  the  protectorate  as  having  failed ; 
.  .  .  they  advised  the  house  that  it  was  useless  to  form  new 
reserves,  as  recommended  by  the  Secretary  of  State ;  the  edu- 


*  Thirty-three  Tears  in  Tasmania  and  Victoria,  by  George  Thomas  Lloyd, 
ch.  xviii..  p.  453. 

History  of  N.  8.  Wales,  by  J.  H.  Braim,  Esq.,  Principal  of  Sydney  College, 
ch.  vi.,  p.  237. 


f  Hit 
vol.  ii., 


416  CHAPTER  V. 

cation  of  adults  they  thought  to  be  hopeless,  and  the  young 
could  be  educated  only  by  a  compulsory  sequestration  from 
their  relatives  and  tribes."  And  then  they  added  this  re- 
markable statement :  "Without  underrating  the  philanthropic 
motives  of  her  Majesty's  government  in  attempting  the  im- 
provement of  the  aborigines,  much  more  real  good  would  be 
effected  by  similar  exertions  to  promote  the  interests  of  religion 
and  education  among  the  white  population  in  the  interior  of  the 
colony,  the  improvement  of  whose  condition  in  these  respects 
would  doubtless  tend  to  benefit  the  aborigines."* 

We  have  now  heard  enough  to  prepare  us  for  the  final 
account  which  is  given  in  1853  by  Mr.  Gerstaecker,  who  says, 
"The  missionaries  have  given  up  the  work  of  conversion  in 
despair;"  and  in  1858  by  Mr.  Minturn,  who  declares,  "All 
missionary  efforts  among  them  have  failed ;  they  are,  in  fact, 
rapidly  dying  away,  and  disappearing  before  the  white  race  ;"f 
and  in  1862,  by  Dr.  Jobson,  who  adds,  "They  have  persistently 
withstood  all  attempts  to  civilize  and  christianize  them  ;"f 
and  lastly,  in  1863,  by  Judge  Therry,  who  once  more 
observes,  "  The  problem  has  still  to  be  solved  of  bringing  even 
a  single  aboriginal  of  New  Holland  within  the  pale  of  civiliza- 
tion.'^ 

And  this  is  the  only  result,  as  far  as  the  natives  are  con- 
cerned, of  the  English  dominion  in  Australia.  They  had  a 
nation  to  convert;  they  have  only  created  a  desert.  "Another 
ten  years,"  says  Mr.  Byrne,  "  and  an  aboriginal  native  will  be 
as  great  a  curiosity  in  Sydney,  or  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
colony,  as  he  is  at  present  in  Europe. "|  Of  the  same  fact  in 
Yan  Dieman's  Land,  we  are  told,  "the  extermination  of  nearly 
a  whole  race  has  been  the  work  of  twenty  years."!"  When  the 
English  first  arrived,  "  the  natives  evinced  the  most  friendly 
dispositions  towards  them,"  and  their  confidence  was  repaid 
by  indiscriminate  slaughter,  directed  by  the  governor  of  the 
colony.**  A  single  military  expedition,  destined  to  destroy 
them  en  masse,  cost  thirty-two  thousand  pounds,  and  failed. 
At  length  they  perished  to  the  last  man,  starved  or  murdered, 
having  learned  from  their  Saxon  lords  only  a  new  catalogue  of 
unfamiliar  crimes,  and  filled  with  an  impotent  but  "  insatiable 

*  Flanagan,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  219. 

f  From  New  York  to  Delhi,  ch.  iii.,  p.  24. 

%  Ch.  vii.,  p.  198. 

§  Reminiscences  of  New  South  Wales  and  Victoria,  by  R.  Therry,  Esq.,  ch. 
xvi.,  p.  292  (1863). 

\  Vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  279. 

1  The  Catholic  Mission  in  Australia,  by  W.  Ullathorne,  D.D.,  p.  47. 

**  Thirty-three  Years  in,  Tasmania  and  Victoria,  by  George  Thomas  Lloyd, 
eh.  ix.,  p.  213  (1862). 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   ANTIPODES.  417 

desire  to  shed  the  blood  of  the  pale-faces  indiscriminately,  and 
without  a  shadow  of  mercy." 

Of  the  new  colony  of  Victoria,  Mr.  "YVestgarth  says,  that 
whereas  in  1831  there  were  from  twenty  thousand  to  twenty- 
five  thousand  natives  ik  within  the  limits  of  tho  present  Vic- 
toria," they  have  dwindled  away  so  rapidly  under  English  rule, 
that  u  they  now  stand  at  two  thousand  live  hundred  for  the 
whole  of  Victoria," — nine-tenths  having  perished  in  twenty 
years, — and  that  even  this  feeble  remnant  has  been  relegated 
to  a  barren  tract  "useless  to  the  colonist."*  In  1863  we  learn 
that  this  number  was  still  further  diminished,  that  "habits  of 
intoxication  are  on  the  increase,  and  there  seems  little  hope  of 
any  great  improvement  in  the  condition  of  this  race.'-f 

Lastly,  of  New  Zealand,  Mr.  Paul  says  :  "  the  New  Zealand- 
ers  are  annually  on  the  decrease,  and  will  no  doubt  in  the 
course  of  time,  perhaps  forty  or  fifty  years,  become  nearly  if 
not  entirely  extinct  ;"J  a  fate  which  Lord  Goderich  reported 
to  Governor  Bourke  was  inevitable,  though,  he  added,  it  was 
impossible  to  speak  of  it  u  without  shame  and  indignation."§ 

"  It  seems,  indeed,"  says  the  Rev.  Dr.  Lang,  with  great  com- 
posure, in  reviewing  these  results  of  Protestant  colonization, 
"  to  be  a  general  appointment  of  Divine  Providence,  that  the 
Indian  wigwam  of  North  America,  and  the  miserable  break- 
wind  of  the  aborigines  of  New  Holland,  should  be  utterly  swept 
away  by  the  flood- tide  of  European  colonization,  .  .  .  and  the 
miserable  remnant  of  a  onc,j  hopeful,  race  will  at  length  gradually 
disappear  from  the  land  of  their  forefathers."! 

Yet  there  are  lands,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  in  which  the 
wigwam  of  the  Indian  still  stands,  except  where  it  has  been 
replaced  by  a  more  solid  edifice ;  and  in  the  Catholic  islands  of 
Oceanica,  as  well  as  by  the  banks  of  all  the  rivers  which  flow 
from  the  Andes  to  the  ocean, — by  the  Amazon  and  the  Oronoco, 
by  the  Rio  Negro  and  the  Parana,  and  the  thousand  tributaries 
which  mingle  with  their  mighty  streams, — his  race  dwells  in 
peace,  and  calls  upon  the  true  God.  Even  in  the  northern  con- 
tinent, where  the  Indian  in  contact  with  Protestantism  "has 
not  ceased  to  degenerate,"  as  M.  de  Tocqueville  observed,  and. 

*  Victoria  and  tlie  Australian  Gold  Mines,  p.  51. 

f  The  Wines,  January  28,  1863. 

j:  Australia,  Tasmania,  and  New  Zealand,  by  R.  B.  Paul,  p.  252  (1857). 

§  New  Zealand  ;  its  Advantages  and  Prospects ;  by  Charles  Terry,  F.R.S., 
F.S.A.,  p.  112.  "  Within  the  first  two  or  three  years  after  the  establishment 
of  the  society's  settlement  at  the  Bay  of  Islands,  not  less  than  one  hundred  at 
least  of  the  nati/es  had  been  murdered  by  Europeans  in  their  immediate 
neighborhood."  The  British  Colonization  of  New  Zealand,  published  for  the 
JN'evv  Zealand  Association,  p.  167  (1837). 

|  History  of  N.  8.  Walw,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  26. 

28 


4:18  CHAPTER   V. 

where  the  savages  diminished  by  seventy-four  thousand  between 
1850  and  1856;  the  populations  under  Catholic  influence,  as 
we  shall  learn  in  a  later  chapter,  "  still  thrive  or  increase"  and 
an  American  officer  could  report  to  his  government  "  the  pro- 
digious work  effected  by  the  missionaries  in  the  far  West,  and 
even  declare  of  one  of  the  most  powerful  tribes,  *'  They  are 
hardly  Indians  now."  But  in  these  cases,  of  which  we  are 
hereafter  to  speak,  the  teachers  of  the  savage  were  men  who 
carried  with  them  from  Europe  no  treasures  but  the  Cross  of 
Christ  and  the  Gospel  of  salvation,  and  therefore  were  able,  as 
we  shall  see  when  we  trace  their  history,  to  gain  millions  of 
barbarians  to  such  a  degree  of  civilization  and  prosperity  as 
excited  the  admiration  even  of  a  Sou  they  and  a  Voltaire. 

We  have  now  exhausted  the  religious  history  of  Australia,  as 
far  as  the  natives  are  concerned,  and  have  no  motive  to  inquire 
curiously  about  its  other  inhabitants ;  yet  a  few  words  may  be 
added  upon  them  also,  before  we  pass  to  the  missionary  annals 
of  New  Zealand.  Dr.  Lang  has  described,  with  his  accustomed 
frankness,  both  the  clergy  and  the  people ;  though  we  may  well 
believe  there  are  some  exceptions  to  the  character  which  he 
depicts.  Of  the  missionaries  he  gives  this  report :  "  There  were 
instances — repeated  instances — of  men,  who,  although  it  was 
known  that  their  characters  were  blasted  at  home,  were  never- 
theless recommended  as  fit  and  proper  persons  for  the  colonial 
field."*  And  the  people  appear,  if  we  in  ay  believe  his  account, 
to  be  worthy  of  such  pastors.  Mr.  Lancelott,f  and  other  writers 
on  the  Antipodes,  deplore  in  energetic  terms  the  profound  im- 
morality of  "  the  most  influential  citizens ;"  while  Dr.  Lang 
thus  speaks  "  of  the  higher  classes  of  colonial  society  :"  "  Even 
their  profession  of  Christianity  is  unquestionably  far  more  hurt- 
ful than  beneficial  to  the  cause  of  pure  and  undefiled  religion. 
In  short,  the  influence  of  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  the 
higher  classes  in  ]ST.  S.  Wales  has  all  along  been  decidedly 
unfavorable  to  the  morals  and  religion  of  the  country." 

"The  extent  to  which  the  laboring  classes  of  emigrants 
become  contaminated,"  observes  Mr.  Henderson,  in  1851,  "is 
immense Education,  in  most  cases,  is  in  a  most  lament- 
able state ;  in  fact,  in  the  greater  part  of  the  country  there  is 
none,  except  what  parents  themselves  can  bestow.":):  Within 
the  nineteen  counties,  to  say  nothing  of  the  districts  beyond  the 
boundaries,  men  live  and  die,  and  children  are  reared,  without 
any  degree  of  religious  instruction. "§  "Of  the  language  in 

*  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  492. 

f  Australia  as  it  is,  by  P.  Lancelott,  Esq.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  72. 

I  Excursions  in  N.  8.  Wales,  by  John  Henderson,  Esq.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  288. 

§  Phipps  Townsend,  ch.  vii.,  p.  140. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  419 

Australia  among  the  laboring  classes,"  says  the  Rev.  Berkeley 
Jones,  in  1853,  "  the  reader  can  form  no  conception.  Such 
swearing,  cursing,  and  obscenity,  were  never  equalled  by  any 
thing  which  you  may  have  accidentally  heard."*  This  applies 
to  N.  S.  Wales :  while  of  Van  Dieman's  Land,  Mr.  Puseley  re- 
ports, in  1858,  that  "  the  number  of  offences  committed  in  the 
city  of  Hobart,  with  a  population  of  only  twenty-three  thou- 
sand, exceeds  by  fifty  per  cent,  that  of  Liverpool,  with  its  two 
hundred  and  ninety-six  thousand  inhabitants  ;"f  and  Mr.  Jones 
relates  of  Melbourne  that  "  no  one  who  values  life  ventures 
about  after  sunset,"  because  "  the  insolence  and  power  of  the 
wicked  is  so  dominant.":): 

Nor  does  it  appear  that  the  higher  classes  contribute  by  their 
influence  or  example  to  counterbalance  these  evils.  "  I  was 
greatly  surprised,"  says  a  Protestant  writer,  in  1862,  "  to  find 
how  thinly  most  of  the  churches  (of  the  Church  of  England) 
were  attended,  and  how  many  people  there  were  in  Australia, 
even  amongst  the  educated,  and  those  in  a  good  position,  who 
never  entered  a  place  of  worship ;"  and  this  is  the  case,  not  only 
with  the  native  colonists,  but  "  even  many  of  those  who  from 
habit,  if  not  from  a  better  motive,  have  been  regular  in  attend- 
ing public  worship  at  home."§ 

On  the  whole,  Protestantism  does  not  seem  to  have  redeemed 
in  Australia  its  misadventures  in  other  lands.  It  has  failed,  in 
spite  of  every  temporal  advantage,  to  convert  even  a  solitary 
pagan  ;  while  its  own  professors,  in  large  numbers,  have  prac- 
tically abandoned  Christianity.  And  Protestants  have  not 
omitted  to  contrast  these  results  with  those  which  mark  the 
influence  of  an  older  and  purer  faith.  Thus  Dr.  Lang  is  angry 
with  Sir  Thomas  Brisbane,  who  must  have  been  the  most 
candid  of  Australian  governors,  because  he  bluntly  replied  to  a 
"  Presbyterian  memorial"  for  public  aid,  on  the  ground  that  it 
was  given  to  Catholics,  that  "  it  would  be  time  for  the  Presby- 
terians to  ask  assistance  from  the  government  when  they  showed 
they  could  conduct  themselves  as  well  as  the  Roman  Catholics 
of  the  colony."||  Mr.  Hood,  also,  a  perfectly  impartial  observer, 
ventures  to  suggest  to  his-  co-religionists,  that  "  the  Protestant 
population  will  do  well  to  imitate  their  Roman  Catholic  breth- 
ren in  their  exertions  on  behalf  of  the  rising  generation ;"  and 
whereas  Mr.  Henderson  has  told  us  that  education  amongst  the 
Protestants  is  at  the  lowest  ebb,  Mr.  Hood  candidly  observes, 

*  Adventures  in  Australia  in  1852  and  1853,  by  the  Rev.  H.  Berkeley  Jones, 
M.A.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  149. 

f  Australia  and  Tasmania,  by  D.  Puseley,  p.  196. 
J  Ch.  xxi.,  p.  299. 

§  Three  Years  in  Melbourne,  by  Clara  Aspinall,  ch.  x.,  p.  130. 
Hist.  N.  8.  Wales,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  461. 


420  CHAPTER   V. 

"  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  with  its  usual  exemplary  zeal,  has 
pushed  schools  and  seminaries  into  every  corner  of  the  colony/'* 
^They  lose  none  of  their  members,"  says  Mr.  Braim,  with  evi- 
dent regret,  unor  abate  any  of  their  zeal."  Dr.  Jobson 
laments  that  in  Western  Australia  also,  "  the  Roman  Catholics 
support  high-class  school  establishments,  to  which  Protestants 
send  their  youth,  perhaps  too  confidently,  for  education. "f 

Finally,  Colonel  Muudy  makes  the*  following  observation 
upon  those  incessant  religious  divisions  which  are  not  less  con- 
spicuous in  the  Antipodes  than  in  China,  India,  Ceylon,  and 
every  other  land  in  which  the  new  religion  lias  displayed  its 
multitudinous  forms.  "  The  Roman  Catholics  here,  as  gener- 
ally in  these  colonies,  appear  to  have  increased  in  number  and 
consequence  at  a  much  greater  ratio  than  other  denominations. 
The  reason  is  obvious.  Union  is  strength.  The  Protestants  are 
split  into  sects — every  man  must  set  up  a  creed  for  himself."^ 

If  there  is  a  fact  still  more  remarkable  than  these  ample  and 
almost  perplexing  confessions  of  Protestant  writers  in  every 
land,  of  which  we  have  already  heard  so  many,  it  is  surely  the 
singular  composure  with  which  they  offer  their  evidence,  and 
then  turn  away  as  calmly  as  if  they  had  been  recording  only  the 
averages  of  a  price-current,  or  the  variations  of  the  thermometer. 
They  are  loading  with  infamy  their  own  religion,  and  do  not 
even  seem  to  be  conscious  of  it.  They  address  to  more  thought- 
ful and  anxious  hearts  the  most  formidable  admonitions  which 
man's  experience  can  offer  or  receive,  and  recite  them  with  cool 
monotonous  indifference,  as  if  they  had  no  meaning  or  signifi- 
cance. They  suggest  to  others  deep  counsels  and  prompt  action, 
remaining  themselves  indifferent  and  unmoved,  ready  to  repeat 
to-morrow  without  emotion  the  avowals  which  they  made  yes- 
terday without  regret. 

The  only  Protestant  admission  of  success  on  the  part  of  Cath- 
olic missionaries  in  civilizing  the  natives,  after  the  long  and 
fruitless  efforts  of  their  unsuccessful  rivals,  is  recorded  by  a 
candid  American  writer  in  these  words:  uThe  Roman  Catholic 
clergy  have  a  native  missionary  establishment  at  Victoria 
Plains,  where  they  make  the  natives  useful  by  taking  every 
means  of  civilizing  them.  A  very  good  feeling  exists  between 
the  natives  and  the  Roman  Catholics."§  Mr.  Townsend  also 
remarks  that  ''the  beneficence  of  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy, 
and  that  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  is  very  great."! 

*  Australia  and  the  East,  ch.  x.,  p.  325. 

f  Australia,  &c.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  194. 

|  Australasian  Colonies,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  42. 

§  Voyages  to  India,  China,  &c.,  by  W.  S.  Bradahaw,  ch.  vi. 

]  Ch.  xii.,  p.  271. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  421 

Yet  the  Catholic  missionary,  here  as  elsewhere,  had  to  contend 
with  that  almost  insuperable  obstacle,  found  only  in  pagan 
lands  tenanted  by  Protestants,  the  contempt  or  aversion  of  the 
heathen  for  a  religion  which  he  had  already  learned  to  despise 
before  the  professors  of  a  holier  creed  presented  themselves  to 
him.  If  the  Apostles  had  appeared  everywhere,  each  accom- 
panied by  a  lady,  and  most  of  them  by  a  group  of  children ; 
eagerly  solicitous,  like  other  men,  about  money,  luxury,  and 
ease ;  contradicting  one  another  in  every  discourse,  and  distin- 
guished from  their  pagan  hearers  only  by  the  profession  of 
truths  of  which  their  own  daily  life  was  the  most  effective 
refutation — in  other  words,  if  they  had  been  Protestant  mission- 
aries— Christianity  would  hardly  have  extended  outside  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  and  would  not  have  attracted  much  attention 
within  them. 

In  spite  of  the  formidable  difficulty  which  apostles  must  now 
expect  to  encounter  in  all  lands,  and  especially  in  those  which 
are  under  the  dominion  of  England,  the  Benedictines  have  com- 
menced in  Western  Australia  one  of  those  generous  undertakings 
so  often  initiated  by  the  first  followers  of  St.  Benedict,  in  con- 
verting the  ancient  barbarians  of  Europe.  On  the  2d  of  June, 
1859,  more  than  forty  Benedictines — the  first  Vicar-General  of 
Australia,  now  an  English  bishop,  had  been  a  member  of  the 
same  illustrious  order — attended,  under  the  guidance  of  Bishops 
Serra  and  Salvado,  at  the  solemn  benediction  of  a  new  monas- 
tery in  the  district  of  Perth.  From  that  hour  hope  dawned 
upon  the  native  of  Australia.  Bishop  Serra  has  lately  com- 
municated to  his  friends  in  Europe  this  account  of  the  present 
condition  of  his  community. 

"  The  example  of  their  habits  of  industry  has  already  been 
followed  by  many  natives,  who,  abandoning  their  erratic  life, 
have  turned  their  attention  to  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  and 
are  now  Living  upon  its  produce.  Moreover,  as  every  Benedictine 
foundation  is  traditionally  known  as  a  nursery  of  learning  as 
well  as  an  asylum  of  penance  and  prayer,  a  college  has  been 
established  under  the  direction  of  the  fathers,  and,  amongst  the 
pagan  youths  who  have,  been  gratuitously  received  as  pupils, 
three  young  Australians  have  already  been  sent  to  Rome  to 
complete  their  education."*  Perhaps  this  remote  colony  of 
England,  hitherto  abandoned  to  titter  darkness,  may  be  destined 
to  receive  from  the  children  of  St.  Benedict  the  same  inappre- 
ciable blessings  for  which  the  mother  country  is  indebted  to 
the  family  of  the  same  glorious  Saint. 

Even  the  Protestant  inhabitants   of  the  colony  appear  to 

*  Annals,  May,  1860,  p.  120. 


422  CHAPTER   V 

anticipate,  without  deriving  any  satisfaction  from  the  prospect, 
that  the  Benedictines  will  not  labor  in  vain.  Thus  a  colonial 
journal  quotes  with  disapprobation  a  recent  letter  of  the 
Superior,  "  as  showing  the  untiring  and  unsparing  energy  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  in  proselytizing  within  the  territories  of  Great 
Britain."  Considering  that  Great  Britain  has  done  nothing 
for  the  inhabitants  but  deprive  them  both  of  their  lands  and 
their  life,  the  complaint  seems  a  little  unreasonable.  "  Our  plan 
of  proceeding,"  says  the  bishop,  as  quoted  by  the  Protestant 
journalist,  "  is  as  follows :  "We  shall  join  the  first  savage  tribe 
which  we  meet ;  wTe  shall  go  with  them,  and  share  their  nomad 
life,  until  we  are  able  to  lix  them  in  some  favorable  situation, 
when  we  propose  to  teach  them,  by  our  example,  how  to  obtain 
their  subsistence  by  agriculture.  When  we  have  thus  attached 
them  to  the  soil,  we  shall  begin  to  speak  to  them  of  religion, 
and  initiate  them  in  ecclesiastical  knowledge,  in  order  that  we 
may  find  in  the  sons  of  Australia  future  missionaries  who  may 
assist  us  in  instructing  their  still  savage  brethren.  When  we 
have  the  good  fortune  to  see  new  fellow-laborers  arrive  from 
Europe,  we  shall  locate  them  in  the  monastic  huts  already 
established,  leaving  them  to  bestow  their  labor  on  the  tribes 
already  attached  to  the  soil.  This  will  leave  us  at  liberty  to 
advance  further  into  the  interior,  and  to  win  other  tribes  to  the 
faith  of  Jesus  Christ.  If  we  can  in  this  manner  establish  a 
chain  of  monasteries,  the  conversion  and  civilization  of  Australia 
will  be  complete." 

A  still  later  account  by  Mgr.  Salvador  informs  us  that  these 
hopes  had  begun  to  receive  their  accomplishment.  "  The  natives 
only  laughed,"  he  says,  "  when  they  first  saw  the  monks 
ploughing  and  sowing ;  but  when  they  gathered  in  the  first 
crop,  these  agricultural  toils  appeared  to  them  worthy  of  imita- 
tion." And  whereas  Protestant  missionaries  relate,  that  the 
native  children  run  away,  or  hide  themselves,  at  their  approach, 
the  Benedictines  commend  both  the  zeal  with  which  their 
parents  send  them  for  instruction,  and  the  remarkable  aptness 
of  the  scholars.  They  record  also  that  five  Australians  had 
already  left  for  Europe  to  complete  their  studies,  and  add  the 
astonishing  fact,  that  two  others  had  actually  been  admitted  as 
novices  in  the  convent  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  della  cava,  in 
the  kingdom  of  Naples.*  On  the  Feast  of  the  Epiphany,  1863, 
a  composition  was  recited  in  his  own  tongue,  by  an  Australian 
native  student,  before  the  college  of  Propaganda. 

On  the  whole  we  may  conclude  that  Bishops  Serra  and  Sal- 
vado  would  not  agree  with  Count  Strzelecki,  who  was  acquainted 

*  Memoires  Hisioriques  sur  I'Awtralie,  2me  partie,  pp.  145, 198. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE  ANTIPODES.  423 

only  with  Protestant  missions,  that  "all  attempts  to  civilize 
and  christianize  the  aborigines  have  utterly  failed ;"  nor  with 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Young,  that  "  it  is  a  hopeless  undertaking ;"  nor 
with  Mr.  Gerstaecker,  that  "  they  have  given  up  conversion  in 
despair;"  nor,  least  of  all,  with  Dr.  Broughton,  who  assured 
the  House  of  Commons,  that  u  it  was  impossible  to  instil  any 
idea  of  Christianity  into  them." 

NEW   ZEALAND. 

And  now  let  us  cbme  to  New  Zealand.  In  reading  the  ac- 
counts which  Protestant  writers  of  various  sects  have  given  of 
the  history  of  their  own  religion  in  this  colony,  our  first  im- 
pression is  one  of  astonishment.  So  eager  do  they  seem  to 
proclaim  to  the  world  the  turpitude  of  the  very  men  whom 
they  profess  to  esteem  as  the  preachers  of  a  "  scriptural "  faith, 
that  we  are  compelled  to  remind  ourselves,  from  time  to  time, 
as  we  listen  to  their  scornful  invective,  that  they  are  partial 
and  reluctant,  not  hostile  or  prejudiced  witnesses.  It  seems 
incredible  that  writers  of  so  many  creeds  and  classes,  but  all 
more  or  less  warmly  interested  in  the  success  of  Protestant 
missions,  many  of  them  ardent  advocates  of  the  missionaries, 
and  not  a  few  their  personal  friends  arid  associates,  should  have 
consented  to  make  revelations  which  are  certainly  without  par- 
allel, except  perhaps  in  the  records  of  the  same  class  of  agents 
in  South  Africa  and  Polynesia. 

The  story  of  Protestant  missions  in  New  Zealand  opens  after 
this  manner:  "I  have  a  manuscript  account,"  says  one  who 
belonged  to  the  class  which  he  describes,  "  which  I  drew  up  my- 
self, from  unquestionable  authority,  so  early  as  the  year  1824,  of 
every  missionary  that  had  set  foot  in  New  Zealand  up  till  that 
period,  as  well  as  of  every  important  transaction  which  had 
occurred  till  then  in  connection  with  the  New  Zealand  mission."* 
It  is  not  often  that  history  is  written  by  a  witness  at  once  so 
competent  and  so  impartial,  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  antici- 
pate with  some  curiosity  the  results  of  such  careful  observation. 
He  goes  on  thus,  addressing  himself  to  Lord  Durham,  who  at 
that  time  held  high  office  under  the  crown  of  England:  "I  am 
confident,  my  lord,  it  would  be  impossible  to  find  a  parallel,  in 
the  history  of  any  Protestant  mission  since  the  Reformation,  to 
the  amount  of  inefficiency  and  moral  worthlessness  which  that 
record  presents.  Indeed,  Divine  Providence  appears  to  have 
frowned  upon  the  New  Zealand  mission  all  along,  and  blighting 
and  blasting  from  Heaven  seem  to  have  rested  upon  it  even  uiitfl 

*  New  Zealand  in  1839,  by  J.  D.  Lang,  D.D.,  p.  30. 


424  CHAPTER  V. 

now."  And  then  he  adds  these  examples  from  his  manuscript 
record,  in  order  to  justify  such  a  denunciation.  u  The  first 
head  of  the  New  Zealand  mission  was  dismissed  for  adultery  ; 
the  second  for  drunkenness;  and  the  third,  so  lately  as  th-Q 
year  1836,  for  a  crime  still  more  enormous  than  either"* 

This  account  was  published  in  1839,  and  other  witnesses  will 
presently  carry  it  on  to  our  own  day  ;  meanwhile,  let  it  be 
noticed  that  Dr.  Lang  finishes  in  1839,  as  he  began  in  1824. 
u  There  is  still,"  he  says,  "  a  most  flagrant  abuse  tolerated  and 
practised  by  the  great  majority  of  its  members,  of  sufficient 
magnitude  to  neutralize  the  efforts  even  of  a  whole  college  of 
apostles." 

Such  is  the  dark  opening  of  a  history  which  resembles  rather 
the  shameful  records  of  a  criminal  calendar  than  the  annals  of 
Christian  missionaries.  In  New  Zealand,  Protestantism  was 
alone,  free  to  develop  according  to  its  nature  and  instincts. 
Let  us  see  what  it  became,  and  what  it  has  done  for  the  noblest 
race  of  barbarians  in  the  southern  hemisphere,  during  the  half 
century  of  its  uninterrupted  intercourse  with  them. 

A  Protestant  naturalist  and  physician,  Dr.  Ernest  Dieffenbach, 
declares,  that  "  of  all  the  natives  of  the  Polynesian  race  the 
New  Zealanders  show  the  readiest  disposition  for  assuming  a 
high  degree  of  civilization.''!  It  was  permitted  by  Providence, 
for  reasons  which  we  cannot  penetrate,  that  the  Christian  religion 
should  first  be  announced  in  this  promising  Meld  by  the  agents 
of  Protestantism.  The  mission  of  New  Zealand  was  founded  by 
Mr.  Marsden  in  1814,  after  unsuccessful  attempts  by  others  in 
1800,  and  18074  "  He  was  originally,"  we  are  told,  "  brought 
up  as  a  blacksmith  ;"§  but  became  ultimately  an  Episcopalian 
minister  in  N.  S.  Wales,  where  for  many  years  he  combined  the 
two  functions  of  preacher  and  agriculturist.  Having  amassed  a 
considerable  fortune  as  a  sheep-farmer,  without  prejudice  to  his 
spiritual  character,  and  having  acquired  a  very  accurate  knowl- 
edge of  the  value  of  land,  of  cattle,  of  crops,  and  of  a  good 
many  other  things,  he  seems  to  have  paid  a  visit  to  New  Zealand 
on  behalf  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society.  The  directors  of 
that  institution  showed  considerable  discrimination  in  the  choice 
of  an  agent  who  knew,  by  long  experience,  how  to  blend  together 
in  a  prolific  union  the  arts  of  the  clergymen  and  the  farmer. 
His  first  step  proved  that  they  were  not  deceived  in  him,  and 
Mr.  Marsden  inaugurated  the  nascent  mission  by  purchasing 

*  New  Zealand  in  1839,  by  J.  D.  Lang,  D.D.,  p.  30. 

f  Travels  in  New  Zealand,  by  Ernest  Dieflcnbach,  M.D.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ix., 


p.  139. 

Ne 

The  Gospel  in  New  Zealand,  by  Miss  Tucker,  en.  iv.,  p.  36. 


New  Zealand,  by  Edward  Brown  Fitton,  ch.  i.,  p.  17. 

n. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   ANTIPODES.  425 

two  hundred  acres  of  land,  chosen  by  himself,  for  twelve  axes.* 
The  transaction  was  perhaps  not  apostolic,  but  the  directors  of 
the  Church  Missionary  Society  would  have  smiled  at  so  un- 
reasonable an  objection  :  it  was  not  even  honest,  for  the  poor 
savages,  as  they*  afterwards  complained,  did  not  know  the 
value  of  their  land;  but  it  was  an  excellent  bargain,  and  a 
very  good  beginning  of  the  New  Zealand  mission. 

Unfortunately,  however,  Mr.  Marsden's  felicitous  contract 
suggested  to  others,  quite  as  capable  as  himself  of  appreciating 
the  keen  negotiation,  a  spirit  of  eager  commercial  enterprise 
which  soon  led  to  very  notable  results.  The  Episcopalian  and 
Wesley  an  clergy,  who  now  congregated  with  startling  promj>- 
titude  in  this  land  of  promise,  rivalled  each  other  in  "  pur- 
chases," the  fame  of  which  traversed  half  the  globe,  and  began 
to  fill  the  ears  of  busy  and  thoughtful  men  in  the  marts  and 
cities  of  England.  It  penetrated  even  the  courts  of  la\v,  and 
found  an  echo  within  the  walls  of  parliament.  This  was  the 
term  of  its  progress ;  for  then  arose  such  an  outcry  of  many 
voices,  such  a  chorus  of  mingled  laughter  and  indignation,  that 
the  government  had  no  alternative  but  to  adopt  instant  meas- 
ures to  thwart  the  exorbitant  cupidity  of  the  missionary  socie- 
ties and  their  agents.  A  little  later,  and  a  large  part  of  the 
soil  of  New  Zealand  would  have  passed  into  the  hands  of  the 
Church  of  England  and  Wesleyan  missionaries.  Let  us  ex- 
amine, solely  by  the  aid  of  Protestant  witnesses,  the  process  by 
which  this  appropriation  was  being  gradually  effected,  until 
the  hour  in  which  it  was  fatally  checked  by  the  inexorable 
edicts  of  the  Colonial  Secretary. 

We  have  seen  that  the  acquisitiveness  of  which  we  are  about 
to  trace  the  results  was  first  manifested  by  Mr.  Marsden,  the 
founder  of  the  New  Zealand  mission.  His  example  was  fruit- 
ful ;  and  only  five  years  later,  in  1819,  as  we  learn  from  Dr. 
Morrison,  the  historian  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  "five 
missionaries  and  artisans" — they  not  unfrequently  cumulated 
these  professions — "  purchased  thirteen  thousand  acres  for  forty- 
eight  axes."f  For  thirty  years  this  lucrative  commerce  con- 
tinued ;  the  parties  to  the  contracts  being,  on  the  one  side,  men 
who  called  themselves  missionaries,  and  on  the  other,  ignorant 
and  inexperienced  savages,  to  whom  they  had  introduced  them- 
selves as  messengers  from  God.  uln  many  cases,"  says  Mr. 
Terry,  "  the  natives  were  quite  unconscious  of  what  they  had 
really  conveyed  by  these  ready-made  deeds;  .  .  .  tracts  of  land 
larger  than  counties  in  England  were  sold  or  conveyed  for  coru- 


*  New  Zealand,  by  J.  L.  Nicholas,  Esq.,  vol.  ii..  ch.  vii.,  p.  193. 

f  TIM  Fathers  of  the  London  Mixisionary  Society,  vol.  ii.,  app.,  p.  598. 


426  CHAPTER   V. 

paratively  a  trifle,  on  half  a  sheet  of  paper.  Already  thirty- 
two  millions  of  acres  are  claimed."*  Between  1830  and  1835, 
at  Hokianga  and  the  Bay  of  Islands  alone,  "  twenty-seven 
square  miles  were  purchased  by  missionaries"^ 

"  At  first,"  Mr.  Byrne  informs  us,  "  thtse  purchases  were 
made  for  little  more  than  a  nominal  consideration ;  a  few  beads, 
a  musket,  some  blankets,  and  a  little  powder  and  ball,  were 
sufficient  to  purchase  tracts  which  were  measured,  in  the 
language  of  the  missionaries,  by  miles.""^  Let  us  give  a  few 
examples  of  a  covetousness  which  is  described  by  rrotestant 
writers  as  so  eager  and  unscrupulous,  that  even  when  detected 
it  knew  not  how  to  blush,  and  which,  when  finally  baffled  arid 
rebuked,  and  compelled  in  many  cases  to  disgorge  its  prey, 
resented  the  loss  of  its  spoils  rather  than  the  public  exposure 
of  its  fraudulent  greed. 

Among  the  many  missionary  claimants  up  to  1841  were  the 
Rev.  J.  Matthews,  for  two  thousand  five  hundred  and  three 
acres ;  the  Rev.  R.  Matthews,  for  three  thousand  acres ;  the 
Rev.  T.  Aitken,  seven  thousand  six  hundred  and  seventy  acres; 
Rev.  "W.  Williams,  eight  hundred  and  ninety ;  Mr.  Clarke, 
nineteen  thousand  ;  Mr.  Davis,  six  thousand  ;  Mr.  Fairburn, 
twenty  thousand  ;  Mr.  Kemp,  eighteen  thousand ;  Mr.  King, 
ten  thousand  three  hundred  ;  Mr.  Shepherd,  eleven  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  sixty  ;  and  finally,  for  we  cannot  reckon 
them  all,  the  Rev.  H.  Williams,  at  first  for  eleven  thousand,! 
and  afterwards,  as  Dr.  Thomson  reports,  for  twenty-two  thou- 
sand acres. 

The  last-named  gentleman  should  not  be  confounded  with 
the  crowd  of  obscure  competitors  in  this  active  commerce.  He 
was  conspicuous  among  the  missionaries  whom,  as  Mr.  Earp 
playfully  told  the  House  of  Commons,  "  the  natives  regarded 
as  having  done  them."  "The  Rev.  Henry  Williams,  the 
chairman  of  the  Church  mission  in  New  Zealand,"  we  are  told 
by  Mr.  AVakefield,  "  under  the  pretence  of  securing  a  piece  of 
land  for  a  native  teacher,  had  obtained  an  assignment  to  himself 
of  forty  acres  of  the  best  part  of  the  proposed  site."||  And  he 
appears  to  have  displayed  similar  talents  during  a  long  series  of 
years.  In  1852,  Dr.  Shaw  relates  that  he  passed  ''miles  of 
barren  district"  in  the  neighborhood  of  Auckland,  the  unpro- 
ductiveness of  which  he  found,  on  further  inquiry,  was  due  to  the 

*  New  Zealand,  &c.,  p.  73. 

•f  The  Story  of  New  Zealand,  by  Arthur  S.  Thomson,  M.D.,  vol.  i.,  p.  268. 
\.  Twelve  Years,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  p.  48. 
|  Terry,  p.  122. 

f  Adventure  in  New  Zealand,  by  Edward  Jerningham  Wakefield,  Esq., 
vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  190. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  427 

speculative  schemes  of  its  reverend  owner.  "It  was  explained," 
he  adds,  "from  the  fact  of  an  Archdeacon  Williams,  one  of  the 
missionaries,  who  had  got  possession  of  it,  and  would  not  sell 
it ;  thereby  putting  an  end  to  cultivation  and  rural  industry  in 
that  part  of  the  country."*  Dr.  Lang  speaks  of  a  Rev.  Mr. 
Williams,  whom  he  calls  "  the  ordained  head  of  the  New 
Zealand  mission,"  who  became  ultimately  an  Anglican  bishop 
in  that  colony.  If  it  was  the  same  individual,  his  career  may 
be  regarded  as  a  pleasing  example  of  continuous  and  progres- 
sive prosperity. 

But  Mr.  Williams,  if  never  surpassed,  was  sometimes  equalled 
by  his  missionary  colleagues.  "Mr.  Shepherd,"  we  learn  from 
a  Protestant  historian,  "  bought  a  large  tract  of  eligible  land, 
having  a  frontage  of  from  four  to  five  miles  on  one  of  the  navi- 
gable rivers  in  the  Bay  of  Islands,  for  two  check  shirts  and  an 
iron  pot."f  Mr.  Marsden,  if  his  life  had  been  prolonged,  would 
have  been  tempted  to  envy  his  successors.  But  Mr.  Shepherd 
was  not  satisfied  with  one  such  bargain,  and  knew  how  to  ac- 
complish still  more  brilliant  operations,  when  spiritual  engage- 
ments left  him  leisure,  by  the  aid  of  check  shirts  and  iron  pots. 
He  has,  we  are  not  surprised  to  hear,  "another  estate  towards 
the  North  Cape,  where  he  is  at  present  stationed  as  a  mission- 
ary." Indeed,  the  success  of  these  gentleman  has  been  so  com- 
plete, that  we  are  told  of  Mr.  Fairburn,  Mr.  Williams,  and 
others,  that  the  very  timber  on  their  ample  estates  was  "worth 
half  a  million  sterling." 

These  examples  of  the  skill  of  Christian  missionaries  in  the 
discharge  of  their  profitable  stewardship  are  instructive,  and  it 
is  only  too  easy  to  add  to  their  number.  The  Rev.  Richard 
Taylor,  who  has  written  a  book  about  New  Zealand,  full  of 
unction  and  running  over  with  texts  of  Scripture,  is  thus 
described  by  Mr.  Wakefield,  in  1845:  "The  Rev.  Richard 
Taylor,  who  only  went  to  New  Zealand  in  the  year  1838,  was 
a  claimant  before  the  Land  Commissioners  of  fifty  thousand 
acres  of  land  !"J  In  Mr.  Taylor's  book  we  only  read  of  his 
zeal  for  the  Gospel,  and  his  tender  interest  in  the  salvation  of 
the  natives.  It  is  true  that  he  soon  abandoned  the  care  of  their 
salvation  to  other  people  ;  but  perhaps  this  \vas  only  because 
so  extensive  a  landowner  might  reasonably  aspire  to  greater 
dignities  at  home.  It  is  true  also  that,  ultimately,  the  decision 
of  the  authorities  deprived  the  ex-missionary  of  more  than 
forty-eight  thousand  acres  of  his  claim ;  and  Dr.  Thomson 

*  Notes  of  a  Ramble  in  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  in  1852,  by  John  Shaw, 
M.D.,  F.G.S.,  p.  289. 

f  Lang,  New  Zealand  in  1839,  p.  34. 
j  Adventure,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  344. 


4:28  CHAPTER  V. 

notices  that  a  well-known  periodical  "  suggested  he  should 
have  his  picture  hung  up  in  the  Church  Missionary  Society's 
hall,  with  the  words  4  fifty  thousand  acres'  under  it."*  Yet  if 
you  read  his  book,  you  will  be  almost  tempted  to  think  that  he 
went  to  New  Zealand  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  heathen. 

The  Rev.  William  Yate,  also  a  "  Church  missionary,"  de- 
serves our  particular  notice.  He,  too,  has  written  a  book  on 
New  Zealand.  Three  missionaries,  he  says,  were  sent  to  that 
colony  with  an  annual  allowance  of  five  hundred  pounds,  an 
income  which  he  considers  despicable,  and  is  surprised  they 
should  be  expected  to  do  any  good  with  such  "  necessarily  in- 
adequate means."  Yet  such  a  sum,  which  would  suffice  to 
maintain  twenty-five  Catholic  missionaries  for  a  year  in  China 
or  India,  was  surely  recompense  enough  for  men  who  had  so 
many  other  means  of  adding  to  their  income,  and  of  whom 
their  colleague  thus  speaks:  "So  far  did  some  of  them  dishonor 
the  self-denying  doctrines  of  the  Cross,  which  they  had  been 
sent  here  to  teach,  that  no  less  painful  a  plan  could  be  adopted 
than  an  ignominious  erasure  of  their  names  from  the  list  of  the 
society's  laborers."t 

Mr.  Yate's  own  admiration  of  the  same  self-denying  doctrines 
was  no  doubt  perfectly  sincere ;  and  it,  was  probably  before  he 
had  learned  to  value  them  that  he  permitted  himself  some 
occasional  relaxation  of  their  strictness,  after  a  manner  which 
was  thus  revealed  to  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Mr.  Yate  used  to  prohibit  the  natives,  the  House  was  informed, 
from  selling  their  pork  to  the  whalers,  not  from  any  unkind 
feeling  towards  those  adventurous  mariners,  but  because  he 
preferred  to  buy  it  himself  at  one  penny  per  pound,  and  then 
to  sell  it  at  fi  ve.;f  The  sentiments  which  Mr.  Yate  expresses 
in  his  book  justify  us  in  assuming  that  he  afterwards  regretted 
his  transactions  in  pork,  which  he  probably  felt  had  been  more 
advantageous  to  himself  than  to  the  whalers  whom  he  mulcted, 
or  to  the  natives  whom  he  instructed  so  persuasively  in  "  the 
self-denying  doctrines  of  the  Cross." 

Such,  according  to  their  owii  testimony,  were  the  Protestant 
missionaries  in  New  Zealand  for  more  than  thirty  consecutive 
years,  and  such  the  examples  which  they  afforded  to  its  abo- 
riginal inhabitants.  These  were  the  Eiccis,  the  Verbiests,  the 
de  Brittos,  and  the  Xaviers  of  Protestantism.  In  1842,  Mr. 


*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  156. 

f  An  Account  of  New  Zealand,  by  the  Rev.  William  Yate,  ch.  iv.,  p.  168, 
2d  edition. 

\  Parliamentary  Papers.  Mr.  Earp's  evidence,  vol.  vii.,  p.  156.  Mr.  Earp 
told  the  committee,  "  That  has  been  the  case  a  great  deal  in  the  past  history 
of  the  missionaries." 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  429 

Heaphy  still  deplores  in  energetic  terms  "  the  rapaciousness  of 
the  missionaries."*  In  the  same  year  Mr.  Terry  reproaches- 
them  with  the  fact,  that  u  many  of  the  missionaries  are  now 
possessors  of  very  large  property. "f  As  late  as  1845  we  find 
a  member  of  the  Legislative  Council  once  more  lamenting  that 
"  many  of  the  Church  missionaries  undoubtedly  are  traders  and 
land-jobbers. ";{:  "'  Scarcely  one  of  the  servants  of  the  Church 
Missionary  Society," — they  were  all  Anglican  ministers, — 
says  Mr.  Waketield  in  the  same  year,  "  has  been  free  from  this 
blemish  of  self-interest. "§  And  this  is  the  language  of  all  the 
witnesses  of  every  sect.  "The  missionaries  of  the  Church 
Missionary  Society  in  New  Zealand,"  says  Dr.  Lang,  u  have 
actually  been  the  principals  in  the  grand  conspiracy  of  the 
European  inhabitants  of  the  island  to  rob  and  plunder  the 
natives  of  their  land."]  Yet  we  shall  presently  find  these 
"  traders  and  land-jobbers,"  riot  only  speaking  complacently  of 
themselves  as  devoted  and  self-denying  missionaries  of  the 
"Dross,  but  reviling  their  Catholic  rivals  in  terms  which  only 
such  men  could  use,  and  opposing  them  by  arts  which  only 
such  men  could  employ. 

Some,  no  doubt,  were  better  than  others ;  but  all  the  au- 
thorities represent  the  Church  of  England  missionaries  as  the 
least  scrupulous  of  any.  When  Mr.  Earp  was  examined  by 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  asked  by  Lord  Jocelyn  if  there 
was  any  difference  of  character  "  between  the  Wesleyan  and 
Church  missionaries,"  he  replied,  "  There  is  nothing  to  choose 
between  them.  I  think  the  Church  missionaries  have  the 
predominance ;  they  have  made  much  larger  speculations  in 
land  than  the  Wesleyans." 

Yet  some  of  the  latter  had  proved  formidable  rivals  to  Arch- 
deacon Williams,  Mr.  Shepherd,  Mr.  Taylor,  and  the  other 
Episcopalian  clergy.  Dr.  Latfg  tells  us  that  Mr.  White,  a 
Wesleyan  missionary  at  Hokianga,  was  obliged  to  retire  in 
consequence  of  detected  "  immorality,"  and  adds,  "this  reputa- 
ble individual  is  now  a  merchant  of  the  highest  class."  JSfor 
does  any  amount  of  exposure  correct  the  frailties  of  these  singu- 
lar missionaries.  As  late  as  1850, — for  time,  which  changes  all 
human  things,  does  not  change  them, — we  have  the  following 
curious  account  of  the  Rev.  Walter  Lawry,  "  General  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Wesleyan  mission  at  Auckland."  It  is  one  of 
his  own  colleagues  who  thus  describes  him  : 

*  Narrative  of  a  Residence  in  various  parts  of  New  Zealand,  by  Charles 
Heaphy,  ch.  i.,  p.  5. 
f  New  Zealand,  &c.,  p.  180. 

New  Zealand  and  its  Aborigines,  by  William  Brown,  ch.  ii.,  p.  89. 

Adventure  in  New  Zealand,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  449. 

New  Zealand,  p.  83. 


430  CHAPTER   V. 

"  He  lends  money,  and  now  has  money  out  at  the  modest 
interest  of  twenty  per  cent."  It  is  his  delight,  he  adds,  "  to 
watch  the  market,  and  to  buy,  sell,  lease,  and  mortgage  to  the 
best  advantage;  so  that  he  is  now  owner  of  land  and  houses, 
and  one  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  Auckland."  What  follows  is 
Gtill  more  impressive  :  "  He  is  doing  as  much  business  as  ever ; 
almost  every  week  we  hear  of  some  fresh  purchase  or  sale.  .  .  . 
He  now  talks  of  going  to  England.  He  is  a  graphic  narrator, 
and  has  a  fund  of  interesting  material,  and  may  produce  a  good 
impression  on  behalf  of  these  missions.  But  I  pray  God  we 
may  see  his  face  no  more,  unless  he  get  reconverted."*  In 
the  next  chapter  we  shall  find  Mr.  Lawry,  as  we  might  have 
anticipated,  invoking  maledictions  upon  Catholic  missionaries, 
and  quoting  Holy  Scripture  against  them. 

Even  in  1857,  nearly  fifty  years  after  Marsden  made  the  first 
missionary  contract  in  New  Zealand,  Mr.  Hursthouse  thus 
describes  his  Anglican  successors.  If  he  uses  the  language  of 
jest  and  irony  who  can  blame  him?  "It  appears  that  the 
Church  missionary  gentlemen  had  come  to  like  New  Zealand. 
The  natives  were  still  addicted  to  cannibalism  and  to  preserving 
each  other's  heads ;  but  the  natives  were  '  missionary  Chris- 
tians,' attentive  in  chapel,  and  not  bad  workmen  in  the  glebe. 
Their  lines  had  fallen  in  pleasant  places.  Liberal  of  the 
society's  converting  blankets  and  tobacco,  they  had  already 
acquired  for  their  thirteen  confederated  chiefs  some  three  hun- 
dred thousand  acres  of  land."f 

"  Several  missionaries,"  Mr.  Bidwill  had  previously  observed, 
in  1841,  "  claim  tracts  of  from  one  to  six  hundred  thousand 
acres  in  different  parts  of  the  country.":):  In  1845,  Mr.  Hawes 
told  the  House  of  Commons,  that,  besides  being  land-jobbers, 
"  they  had,  at  least  some  of  them,  become  more  or  less  traders 
also."§  And  so  notorious  had  their  character  now  become, 
that  Mr.  Charles  Buller,  writing  officially  to  Lord  Stanley,  did 
not  hesitate  to  speak  of  them  as  men  who  would  not  dare  even 
to  offer  any  defence  of  their  own  conduct.  "  The  missionaries 
are  not  in  a  state  to  encounter  public  discussion  of  their  past 
proceedings,  and  would  entertain  any  terms  offered  to  them  in 
a  very  mitigated  spirit. "||  They  had  become  at  last  a  jest  and 
a  proverb ! 

*  A  Voice  from  New  Zealand,  by  Rev.  Joseph  Fletcher,  Wesleyan  Mi*, 
eionary  at  Auckland,  pp.  2,  3. 

f  New  Zealand,  the  Britain  of  the  South,  by  Charles  Hursthouse,  vol.  i.,  ch. 
i.,  p.  37. 

i  Rambles  in  New  Zealand,  by  John  Carne  Bidwill,  p.  86. 

§  Report  of  the  Debates  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  State  of  New  Zea- 
land, p.  115. 

\  Eighteenth  Report  of  the  Directors  of  the  New  Zealand  Company,  p.  42. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE   ANTIPODES.  431 

Finally,  even  Dr.  DiefFenbach,  their  familiar  friend  and  con- 
stant advocate,  was  constrained,  by  liis  own  experience  and 
observation,  to  speak  as  follows  of  men  whom  he  desired  only 
to  praise :  "  The  Church  missionaries  in  the  Bay  of  Islands 
possess  large  properties  in  these  districts,  which  is  perhaps  the 
reason  that  they  have  not  long  ago  gone  into  the  interior, 
where  they  would  have  been  far  more  usefully  employed  than 
in  the  Bay  of  Islands,  which  is  principally  a  shipping- pi  ace. 
Some  of  the  stations  occupied  by  them  are  nearly  deserted  by 
the  natives,  and  they  have  therefore  no  congregations,  unless 
they  choose,  like  St.  Antonio,  to  preach  to  the  fishes."  But  in 
default  of  congregations  they  had  their  estates,  which  they  prob- 
ably considered  a  satisfactory  compromise.  "  Their  efficiency 
would  undoubtedly  have  been  greater,"  Dr.  Dieffenbach  mildly 
observes,  "  if  they  had  shared  the  adventurous  spirit  of  the 
settlers,  and  had  lived  amongst  the  interior  tribes."  But  such 
a  life  had  no  attractions  for  them,  and  "  the  consequence  has 
been  that  many  of  the  older  missionaries  have  become  landed 
proprietors ;  and  many,  by  other  pursuits,  such  as  banking  or 
trading  with  the  produce  of  their  gardens  or  stock,  have  become 
wealthy  men.  .  .  .  Some  of  these  persons  are  now  retiring  on 
their  property"*  Their  sons,  also  hereditary  merchants, 
learned  to  imitate  the  virtues  of  their  fathers,  and  "  the  rela- 
tives of  the  Church  missionaries,"  Colonel  Mundy  relates, 
"  contracted  for  the  supply  of  provisions"  to  the  army  and  fleet, 
"  and  their  sons  did  undoubtedly  reap  a  rich  harvest.''f 

Such  is  one  of  the  most  characteristic  chapters  in  the  history 
of  Protestant  missions.  We  shall  find  many  like  it  in  the  lands 
which  we  have  still  to  visit,  as  we  have  already  found  others  in 
China,  India,  and  Ceylon ;  but  we  will  only  so  far  anticipate 
the  evidence  which  has  still  to  be  adduced  as  to  observe  here, 
that  the  same  witnesses  whom  we  have  just  heard  will  tell  us 
presently,  in  spite  of  vehement  prejudices,  that  the  Catholic 
missionaries  in  this  land  have  been  conspicuous  for  the  evan- 
gelical purity,  zeal,  and  disinterestedness  which  .they  vainly 
searched  for  in  their  Protestant  rivals.  To  these  true  apostles 
of  Jesus  we  owe  an  apology  for  even  comparing  them,  though 
by  way  of  contrast,  with  such  emissaries  as  England  has  sent 
to  New  Zealand  during  fifty  years,  to  represent  her  religious 
opinions.  Yet  these  men  professed  to  be  "  missionaries  of  the 
Gospel,"  and  teachers  of  the  "  self-denying  doctrines  of  the 
Cross."  Most  of  them  have  written  books  exalting  their  own 
apostolic  triumphs,  and  challenging  the  admiration  of  their 

*  Travels  in  New  Zealand,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  75. 
f  Australasian  Colonies,  vol.  ii.,  p.  222. 


432  CHAPTER   V. 

partisans  at  home.  How  far  they  deserved  it  we  have  seen 
from  their  own  confessions  or  the  narratives  of  their  friends. 
Perhaps  even  their  warmest  advocates — though  they  have 
eagerly  read  the  romantic  biographies  in  which  such  men  as 
Marsden,  and  Taylor,  and  Yate,  and  Leigh,  and  many  others, 
are  depicted  as  u  angels  of  light" — may  at  last  comprehend 
their  true  character  and  the  hoilowness  of  their  religious  pro- 
fession, if  they  will  only  refer  to  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and 
contemplate  for  a  moment  the  model  there  exhibited  of  the 
Christian  missionary.  Let  them  at  least  interrogate  their  own 
hearts,  and  say  whether  the  men  by  whose  labor  God  has  in 
various  ages  converted  the  heathen  to  the  knowledge  of  His 
Son  were  ever  such  as  these?  Let  them  tell  us  whether  they 
can  imagine  St.  Paul  claiming  thousands  of  acres  in  Thrace,  or 
an  estate  in  the  suburbs  of  Corinth ;  St.  Barnabas  bartering 
domestic  utensils  for  a  vineyard  in  Cyprus;  St.  Augustine 
robbing  the  Saxons  of  their  pork  to  sell  it  to  the  Welsh  ;  St. 
Boniface  lending  money  at  twenty  per  cent,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Danube  ;  or  St.  Francis  Xavier  a  thriving  cattle-dealer  on 
the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf? 

In  this  lamentable  history  there  is,  however,  one  consolation. 
The  day  of  retribution  came  at  last;  and  England  nobly 
disavowed,  by  the  voice  of  her  rulers,  the  turpitude  of  her 
missionaries  in  New  Zealand.  Some  of  them  indeed  had 
anticipated  the  coming  storm,  and  "  retired  on  their  property  ;" 
but  their  cupidity,  as  Mr.  Brodie  notices,  led  to  "  the  enactment 
of  a  law  declaring  all  titles  to  lands  purchased  from  natives 
invalid."*  Many  who  were  striving  to  emulate  their  prosper- 
ous predecessors  were  rudely  interrupted  in  their  dreams  of 
wealth,  and  even  compelled  to  abandon  the  prey  which  they 
thought  they  had  secured.  "  Many  of  the  purchases,"  says  Mr. 
Chamerovzow,  though  he  includes  the  colonists  as  well  as  the 
missionaries  in  his  reproaches,  "have  since  been  declared  invalid 
by  the  local  government,  being  repudiated  by  the  native  owners 
on  the  plea  of  inadequate  compensation,  wilful  double  dealing, 
or  actual  fraud. "f  "  The  Church  of  England  missionaries," 
says  a  writer  in  1860, — for  it  is  a  notable  feature,  as  we  saw  in 
India  and  China,  of  Protestant  missions,  that  their  latest 
annalists  are  as  full  of  rebuke  as  all  who  preceded  them, — 
k%  claimed  two  hundred  and  sixteen  thousand  acres  of  land ;" 
and  the  arts  by  which  the  reverend  claimants  had  appropriated 
them  are  sufficiently  revealed  by  the  fact  that  the  final  judicial 
award  compelled  them  to  resign  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 

*  Remarks  on  the  PaMand  Present  state  of  New  Zealand,  by  Walter  Brodie, 
p.  52  (1845). 
f  The,  New  Zealand  Quttfion,  by  Louis  Chamerovzow,  ch.  i.t  p.  4. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  433 

Band!  "Archdeacon  Henry  Williams  and  some  others,"  adds 
the  same  authority,  were  at  length  admonished,  but  not  till  it 
was  found  that  the  English  public  would  no  longer  tolerate 
their  proceedings,  "  that  they  must  either  give  up  their  exces- 
sive grants  of  laud,  or  leave  the  service  of  the  mission.  The 
Archdeacon  chose  the  latter  course.  When  he  had  suffered 
suspension  for  five  years,  he  was  restored" — to  become  once 
more  a  guide  to  the  heathen,  and  an  ornament  of  the  Anglican 
Church  in  New  Zealand. 

The  missionaries  had  now  no  alternative  but  to  be  content 
with  their  salaries,  and  to  trade  or  speculate  only  through  the 
agency  of  others.  But  the  societies  at  home  had  prepared  at 
least  a  partial  compensation,  by  arranging  that  the  wealth  of 
their  agents  should  vary  as  the  number  of  their  children  !  The 
tariff  of  missionary  rewards,  we  learn  from  Dr.  Dieffenbach,  was 
on  the  following  scale:  "  When  the  question  of  providing  for 
the  children  of  the  missionaries  was  brought  before  the  com- 
mittee of  the  Church  Missionary  Society  in  London,  two  hun- 
dred acres  for  each  child  was  thought  to  be  a  liberal  allowance." 
He  adds  that  "ten  acres  of  arable  land  must  be  regarded  as 
sufficient  for  all  reasonable  wants  of  an  individual."  But  we 
have  seen  that  the  revenues  of  the  missionary  societies  are 
large,  and  the  benevolence  of  their  subscribers  inexhaustible.* 

One  circumstance  only  remains  to  be  noticed.  The  too  pros- 
perous career  of  the  missionaries  in  New  Zealand  attracted 
attention,  as  we  have  observed,  even  in  the  assembly  of  Parlia- 
ment. In  a  debate  which  took  place  in  the  House  of  Commons 
in  1845,  "the  conduct  of  the  Catholic  missionaries,"  of  which 
we  shall  hear  more  presently,  was  contrasted  by  more  than  one 
speaker  with  that  of  the  Protestants.  The  late  b'ir  Robert 
Inglis,  the  official  apologist  of  the  Church  of  England  on  all 
occasions  and  against  all  adversaries,  offered  to  the  House  of 
Commons  this  explanation.  "  It  must  always  be  recollected," 
he  said,  "  that,  after  no  length  of  time,  could  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic missionaries  have  to  provide  for  families."  The  same  thing,, 
happily  for  the  progress  of  Christianity,  was  true  of  the  first 
Apostles;  but  it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  Sir  Robert  Inglis 
should  introduce  this  consideration  to  the  notice  of  the  Mouse. - 

A  more  candid  and  better  informed  critic,  who  had  seen 
both  classes  of  missionaries  at  their  work,  while  he  laments 
that  the  Protestant  teachers  "  were  very  censurable,''  adds  the 
very  reflection  which  Sir  Robert  Inglis  prudently  suppressed. 
"The  Roman  Catholic  missionaries,  Dr.  Thomson  remarks, 

*  In  like  manner,  "  the  Chaplains  of  New  South  Wales  were  gratuitously 
preaented  with  one  thousand  aix  hundred  acrea  per  child.  Excursion  in  jMcto 
Zealand,  p.  50. 


434  CHAPTER  V. 

"  would  not  take  advantage  of  the  trade  ;  for  the  missionaries 
of  this  Church  in  other  countries  have  generally  obeyed  the 
spirit  of  the  holy  injunction  to  the  first  Christian  missionaries 
in  the  world  :  'Take  nothing  for  your  journey,  neither  staves, 
nor  scrip,  neither  bread,  neither  money,  neither  have  two  coats 
apiece;5  " — a  contrast  which  we  have  seen  emphatically  traced 
by  another  witness,  when  he  told  the  House  of  Commons, 
"  Christ  said,  Leave  all ;  they  say,  Take  all." 

And  now  that  we  are  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  mis- 
sionaries themselves,  it  is  time  to  inquire  what  has  been  the 
result  of  their  labors.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  undeniable  that 
a  large  number  of  the  natives  have  gradually  been  induced,  like 
the  Cingalese  during  the  Dutch  occupation,  to  profess  a  nominal 
Christianity.  Irresistible  motives  have  conspired  to  provoke 
their  external  acquiescence  in  the  religion  of  their  masters. 
From  them  they  have  learned  many  European  arts,  tending  to 
augment  their  ease  and  enjoyment;  and  "their  fine  intellect 
enables  them  at  once  to  perceive  the  great  value  of  these 
crafts."*  From  them  they  learned  the  value  of  land,  and  of 
its  products,  for  which  they  quickly  understood  the  strangers 
would  be  their  surest  customers.  "The  success  of  the  mission- 
aries in  New  Zealand,"  observes  Mr.  Brown,  "is  chiefly  refer- 
able, not  by  any  means  to  a  wish  on  the  part  of  the  natives  for 
religious  instruction,  but  to  their  hope  of  selling  their  land, 
building  houses,  or  general  trading. "f 

The  same  observation  has  been  made  by  many  other  writers. 
"  Utilitarian  motives,"  says  Colonel  Mundy,  "have  undoubtedly 
been  very  powerful  auxiliaries  to  their  reception  of  the  Christian 
faith. "f  "  The  greater  part  of  the  so-called  Christian  natives," 
Mr.  Carne  Bidwill  informs  us,  "have  only  been  attracted  to 
become  converts  by  the  easy  mode  of  life  which  they  enjoy  at 
the  missionary  establishments.'^  "They  seem  to  understand 
little,  and  to  care  less,  about  the  principles  of  the  Christian 
creed,"  says  another  independent  witness,  but  they  appreciate 
the  "  many  useful  arts"  which  the  missionaries  can  teach  them, 
and  easily  understand  that  it  is  "  their  policy  to  support  and 
encourage  the  missionaries."!  "  Many  have  been  the  supposed 
converts  to  missionary  instruction,"  says  Mr.  Polack  in  1840, 
"  from  the  craft/  feeling  of  bettering  their  present  condition. ''T 

*  Brown's  New  Zealand,  ch.  ii.,  p.  60. 

|  P.  90. 

\  Australasian  Colonies,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  133. 

§  Rambles  in  New  Zealand,  p.  36. 

|  Rocings  in  the  Pacific,  by  a  Merchant  long  resident  at  Tahiti,  vol.  L,  ch. 
ix.,  p.  227. 

Tf  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  New  Zealanders,  by  L  S.  Polack,  Esq.,  vol. 
ii.,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  235. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   ANTIPODES.  435 

"  We  £re  growing  old,"  is  an  expression  which  Mr.  Wakefield 
sometimes  heard  amongst  them,  "and  want  our  children  to  have 
protection  in  people  from  Europe."*  "  The  natives,"  says  Mr. 
Hay,  "  are  anxious  to  be  placed  under  the  protection  of  British 
law,  and  would  he  willing  to  receive  any  person  vested  with 
power  to  enforce  it."f  "  All,"  says  Dr.  Thomson,  "  looked  upon 
the  missionary  and  his  effects  as  their  own  property.":):  And  so 
well  was  this  understood  by  the  authorities  in  New  Zealand, 
that  when  a  new  tribe  announced  their  adhesion  to  the  mis- 
sionary party,  Mr.  Forsaith,  who  held  the  office  of  "Protector 
of  Aborigines,"  contented  himself  with  reporting  to  the  local 
government  that  it  had  "nominally  embraced  Christianity. "§ 
What  the  profession  was  worth  we  shall  see  presently. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  far  from  encountering  even,  the  pre- 
liminary difficulties  which  commonly  impede  the  progress  of 
missions  in  heathen  lands,  every  thing  tended  in  New  Zealand 
to  promote  and  accelerate  it ;  so  that  Mr.  Brown  reproaches  the 
missionaries,  with  apparent  reason,  that  "they  have  themselves 
to  blame  that  success  has  not  been  much  greater."  Every 
human  aid  which  could  promote  that  success  was  freely  placed 
at  their  disposal.  If  a  new  mission  is  to  be  opened,  the 
governor  does  not  disdain  to  accompany  the  missionary  in 
person,  and  goes  to  induct  him,  surrounded  by  such  pomp  and 
circumstance  as  his  quasi-reg&l  office  permits;!  and  thus  forci- 
bly admonishes  the  "line  intellect"  of  the  natives  that  the 
power  which  they  may  never  more  hope  to  resist,  and  from 
whose  patronage  alone  they  can  henceforth  expect  grace  and 
favor,  is  permanently  enlisted  on  the  side  of  their  Protestant 
teachers.  To  them  they  must  now  look  for  prosperity,  for  in- 
struction in  domestic  arts,  and  even  for  daily  employment. 
The  very  agents  selected  from  amongst  the  natives  as  "  cate- 
chists"  or  "  assistant  preachers"  are  thus  described  by  Mr. 
Wakeh'eld.  "The  principal  teachers  under  the  missionaries 
are  generally  their  house-servants  at  the  same  time,  black  their 
shoes,  clean  their  windows,  make  their  beds,  groom  their  horses, 
and  cook  their  dinner."  And  we  cannot  be  surprised  that 
barbarians  whose  acuteness  has  become  a  proverb,  and  who 
enjoy  daily  opportunities  of  exercising  it,  should  reflect  seriously 
upon  the  ample  resources  which  they  perceive  to  be  at  the 
disposal  of  their  masters.  They  may  be  ignorant  of  the  exact 

*  Adventure  in  New  Zealand,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  73. 
f  Journal  of  tlie  Royal  Geographical  Society,  vol.  ii.,  p.  134. 
i  Vol.  i.,  p.  316. 

§  Parliamentary  Papers,  vol.  xxx.,  p.  173  (1846). 

|  See  Sir  George  Grey's  Overland  Expedition  from  Auckland  to  Taranatci, 
1850. 


436  CHAPTER  V. 

annual  revenue  of  the  various  missionary  societies,  but  they 
have  detected  that  it  is  large  enough  to  justify  the  shrewd  cal- 
culation, that  even  the  generous  living  o'f  the  missionaries  will 
not  wholly  exhaust  it,  and  that  a  considerable  surplus  will  be 
applicable  to  their  own  wants. 

It  was  remarked  by  Mr.  Terry,  in  1842,  that  "  at  the  enor- 
mous annual  expense  of  above  fourteen  thousand  pounds,  in  the 
twenty-fifth  year  of  its  establishment  in  New  Zealand,  the 
Church  Missionary  Society  only  provided  for  the  religious  and 
scholastic  instruction  of  the  aborigines  eight  missionaries,  and 
sixteen  catechists."*  Many  years  later,  we  are  told  by  Dr. 
Selwyn,  of  whom  we  shall  have  to  speak  more  fully  hereafter, 
that  the  result  of  one  appeal  for  pecuniary  contributions  to  the 
New  Zealand  mission  was  this,  that  "the  post  for  some  days 
seemed  to  rain  bank-notes,  "f  The  Wesleyans  also,  as  the  Eev. 
Mr.  Turton  relates,  had  spent  eighty  thousand  pounds  before 
18444  Lastly,  the  Canterbury  settlement,  the  latest  missionary 
enterprise  in  this  colony,  was  conducted  from  its  very  origin 
with  such  careful  financial  forethought,  that  "  one-third  of  the 
entire  proceeds  of  the  '  land  sales '  is  appropriated,"  we  learn 
from  Mr.  Hursthouse,  "to  religious  and  educational  purposes ;"§ 
and  in  1850  the  projectors  cheerfully  estimate  their  eventual 
share  from  this  source  at  one  million  sterling. | 

The  natives,  then,  had  manifold  and  urgent  motives  for  close 
alliance  with  the  Protestant  missionaries.  So  clearly  did  they 
perceive  that  they  had  every  thing  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose 
by  the  nominal  profession  of  Protestantism,  that  considerations 
of  interest  overcame,  in  the  case  of  large  numbers,  the  repug- 
nance with  which  the  avarice  of  the  missionaries  had  inspired 
them.  It  was  indeed  strongly  suspected,  as  Mr.  Tyrone  Power 
observes,  that  "  a  struggle  for  temporal  advantages"  chiefly 
influenced  the  latter.;!  or,  as  Dr.  Dietfenbach  relates,  "that  the 
missionaries  sought  to  convert  them  only  with  a  view  to  their 
own  aggrandizement  ;"**  but  if  the  natives  could  share  in  the 
benefits  by  which  a  more  active  commerce  was  sure  to  be 
accompanied,  they  were  willing  to  overlook  this  defect  in  their 
religious  teachers,  and  even  to  do  their  best  to  imitate  it.  In 
this,  as  all  the  witnesses  affirm,  they  were  entirely  successful. 

*  New  Zealand,  &c.,  p.  189. 

f  flhe  Melanesian  Mission,  by  G.  A.  Selwyn,  D.D.,  Lord  Bishop  of  New  Zea- 
land, Letter  i.,  p.  51  (1853). 

|  Brov/n's  New  Zealand,  app.,  p.  273. 

§  New  Zealand,  &c.,  p.  155. 

\  Canterbury  Papers,  p.  7  (1850). 

T[  Sketclws  in  New  Zealand,  by  W.  Tyrone  Power,  D.A.C.G.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  147 
(1849). 

**  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  169. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  ANTIPODES.  437 

The  natives  still  said,  indeed,  and  sometimes  even  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  missionaries,  that  "  their  only  reason  for  coming  to 
New  Zealand  was  that  it  was  a  better  country  than  their  own."* 
But  this  conviction  did  not  deter  them  from  profiting  by  their 
instructive  example.  With  what  fatal  results  that  example  has 
been  attended  is  sufficiently  revealed  in  the  following  passages. 
uThey  have  become  covetous,  suspicious,  and  unfortunate," 
says  Dr.  Dieffenbach,  the  friend  and  associate  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries.  "They  have  lost  a  great  part  of  their  hospitality 
and  politeness,  and  their  refusing  aid  when  the  stranger  is  most 
in  want  of  it,  or  exacting  exorbitant  recompense  for  it,  makes 
travelling  now  very  annoying."  Mr.  David  Rough,  another 
Protestant  traveller,  who  was  on  a  certain  occasion  the  guest  of 
"Archdeacon  Brown,"  relates  that  "the  demands  made  were  so 
exorbitant,"  even  for  the  smallest  services,  that  his  host  lent 
him  "  his  own  men  rather  than  suffer  us  to  submit  to  imposi- 
tion." And  so  little  ashamed  were  these  "  Christian"  natives 
of  their  new  vice,  that,  as  Mr.  Rough  adds,  they  openly  boasted 
of  "  their  success  in  exacting  high  pay."f  In  1862,  Mr.  Hod- 
der,who  relates  that  "few  of  the  natives  have  any  partiality  for 
the  English  settlements,"  which  they  only  visit  for  the  purposes 
of  gain,  laments  that  this  greedy  and  mercenary  spirit  was  more 
apparent  than  ever.:f  "  Instead  of  enjoying  themselves  with 
song  and  the  merry  dance,  as  formerly,"  says  Mr.  Brown,  "they 
are  absorbed  in  thinking  of  their  next  bargain  with  the 
Europeans."  "  How  is  it  likely,"  asks  another  Protestant 
writer,  "  that  their  avarice  should  be  subdued,  when  they  saw 
those  people  who  came  to  preach  the  Gospel  grasping  to  obtain 
large  landed  property,  and  those  who  were  guilty  of  downrignt 
vice?"§: 

It  appears,  too,  that  they  had  already  learned  to  quote  the 
Protestant  Bible  in  defence  of  their  greed  and  impurity.  Mr. 
Fox  gives  examples,  in  1851,  such  as  the  following.  "  One  of 
them,  whom  the  governor  was  upbraiding  with  having  sold  his 
land  three  or  four  times  over  to  different  parties,  justified  him- 
self by  quoting  the  passage,  'After  thou  hadst  sold  it,  was  it 
not  thine  own?'  And  a  very  intelligent  native,  to  whom  I  was 
pointing  out  the  impropriety  of  having  three  wives,  replied, 
4  Oli,  never  mind,  all  the  same  as  Solomon !'  A  much  more 
serious  misapplication  of  the  Scripture  occurred  during  the  late 
war,  when  many  of  them  tore  up  their  Bibles  to  make  wadding 

*  Dr.  Lang's  New  Zealand,  p.  42. 

f  Narrative  of  a  Journey  through  part  of  the  North  of  New  Zealand,  by 
David  Rough,  p.  18. 

±  Memories  of  New  Zealand  Life,  pp.  33,  67  (1862). 
£  Letters  from  Wanganui,  p.  39  (1845). 


438  CHAPTER  V. 

for  their  guns."*  Even  the  native  "  preachers,"  whom  the  mis- 
sionaries somewhat  imprudently  deputed  to  represent  them  in 
the  interior,  and  who  were,  of  course,  the  flower  of  their  u  con- 
verts," "raised  a  very  considerable  income,"  we  are  informed 
by  Mr.  Shortland,  "  in  the  shape  of  iron  pots,  boxes,  blankets, 
and  fire-arms,  as  fees  for  performing  the  ceremonies  of  marry- 
ing, burying,  &c."f 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  these  melancholy  statements, 
which  for  the  honor  of  our  race  and  nation  we  would  have 
gladly  suppressed,  if  they  had  not  been  already  recorded  by  a 
crowd  of  Protestant  writers ;  but  we  may  content  ourselves  with 
adding  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Waken' eld,  than  whom  no  writer  on 
New  Zealand  has  enjoyed  better  opportunities  of  estimating 
the  native  character,  and  the  effects  of  the  Protestant  missions 
upon  it.  "The  most  disagreeable  and  saddening  remark,"  says 
this  intelligent  writer,  "  which  I  made  was  this,  that  the  na- 
tives appeared  to  have  entirely  abandoned  their  primitive  and 
beautiful  hospitality,  the  great  redeeming  point  in  the  character 
of  the  most  ferocious  and  treacherous  heathen  native,  whom  no 
influence  of  any  sort  has  yet  changed  for  the  better,  or  pervert- 
ed from  the  customs  of  his  fathers.  Every  village  (of  the 
'  Christians')  reminded  me  of  the  i  touters'  on  the  pier  at 
Boulogne,  seeking  to  pounce  on  an  unfortunate  traveller.  In- 
stead of  the  former  dignified  reception,  with  a  house  assigned 
you  by  the  chief,  the  whole  population  rushes  at  you;  but  you 
soon  find  that,  whichever  you  may  choose,  you  have  to  pay  for 
each  small  kit  of  potatoes,  for  the  carrying  of  water,  or  of  fern 
for  your  bed,  and  even  for  every  stick  of  firewood  before  you 
are  allowed  to  burn  it."J  And  this  account  is  confirmed,  in 
1859,  by  the  latest  writer  on  New  Zealand,  who,  while  noticing 
that  even  at  that  date  "  their  religion  consisted  more  in  words 
than  deeds,"  still  adds  the  same  sign  of  declension,  "  that 
Christian  natives  were  less  given  to  hospitality  than  the  hea- 
thens.'^ What  they  have  become  at  last,we  shall  learn  at  the 
close  of  this  chapter. 

Such,  as  their  own  friends  attest,  is  the  first  and  most  obvious 
result  of  the  action  of  Protestant  missionaries  upon  the  natives 
of  New  Zealand.  Let  us  inquire  in  the  next  place,  and  still 
from  the  same  impartial  witnesses,  what  is  the  nature  of  the 
religion  which  they  have  been  induced  to  profess,  how  far  it 
resembles  Christianity,  and  what  influence  it  exerts  over  their 

*  The  Six  Colonies  of  New  Zealand,  by  William  Fox,  p.  83  (1851). 
f  The  Southern  Ztistricts  of  Neio  Zealand,  by  Edward   Shortland,   M.A., 
p.  268  (1851). 

t  Adventure  in  New  Zealand,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  358. 
§  Dr.  Thomson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  164. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  439 

habits  and  character.  As  the  evidence  is  copious,  and,  in  spite 
of  the  diversity  of  the  witnesses,  absolutely  uniform,  it  will,  per- 
haps, be  most  convenient  to  follow  the  order  of  dates.  Dr.  Lang 
has  traced  for  us  the  results  of  Protestant  missions  in  New 
Zealand  up  to  1839;  other  authorities,  equally  competent  and 
unexceptionable,  will  carry  on  the  history  to  the  present  hour. 

Already,  in  1832,  a  writer  in  the  Asiatic  Journal,  after  a 
review  of  some  of  the  facts  which  we  have  been  considering, 
pronounced  this  verdict  upon  the  missionaries  in  New  Zealand 
and  the  islands  of  the  South  Sea.  "We  have  come  to  the 
painful  conclusion,  that  the  presence  of  the  missionaries  in  New 
Zealand  and  Otaheite  has  been  productive  of  more  mischief 
than  good."*  And  in  the  same  year,  Mr.  Earle,  who  indig- 
nantly reproaches  their  worldly  and  uncharitable  lives,  and 
exposes  the  real  character  of  their  "  converts,"  emphatically 
declares,  "  I  never  saw  one  proselyte  of  their  converting."f 

In  the  year  1835  we  come  to  Mr.  Yate,  a  Church  of  England 
missionary,  whose  operations  as  a  dealer  in  provisions  have 
already  been  noticed.  Here  is  a  conversation  which  he  relates 
between  himself  and  one  of  his  male  converts. 

Mr.  Yate.  "  What  is  the  new  heart  like  ?"  Answer.  "  Like 
yours ;  it  is  very  good." 

"  Where  is  its  goodness?" 

Answer.  "  It  is  altogether  good  ;  it  tells  me  to  lie  down  and 
sleep  all  day  on  Sunday,  and  not  to  go  and  tight." 

"  When  did  you  pray  last?" 

"  This  morning." 

"What  did  you  pray  for?" 

"  I  said,  O  Jesus  Christ,  give  me  a  blanket,  in  order  that  I 
may  believe."^: 

this  view  of  the  proper  objects  of  prayer  seems  to  have  been 
universal  with  Protestant  New  Zealanders.  Here  is  a  letter 
which  Mr.  Yate  received  from  one  of  his  neophytes,  and  his 
book  contains  similar  specimens  of  their  epistolary  style.  "  Mr. 
Yate,  how  do  you  do?  Sick  is  my  heart  for  a  blanket.  Yes, 
forgotten  have  you  the  young  pigs  I  gave  you  last  summer. 
My  pipe  is  gone  out,  and- there  is  not  tobacco  with  me  to  iill  it: 
where  should  I  have  tobacco?  Remember  the  pigs  which  1 
gave  you  ;  you  have  riot  given  me  any  thing  for  them.  I  fed 
you  with  sucking  pigs;  therefore  I  say,  do  not  forget. "§  Mr. 
Yate  was  evidently  doomed  to  be  reminded  of  an  animal  with 
which  his  missionary  career  had  made  him  too  well  acquainted. 

*  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  viii.,  p.  106.    New  Series. 

f  Nine  Months'  .Residence  in  New  Zealand,  By  Augustus  Earle,  p.  201. 

±  Account  of  New  Zeidand,  ch.  v.,  p.  222. 

§P.271. 


440  CHAPTER  V. 

Advancing  to  1840,  we  come  to  Mr.  Polaek,  and  to  the  care- 
ful and  minute  account  which  he  has  given  of  New  Zealand 
and  its  inhabitants.  "  The  attempts  to  instil  a  real  belief  in  the 
Christian  religion  into  the  minds  of  the  benighted  natives,"  he 
says,  "has  hitherto  decidedly  failed,"  after  an  experiment 
which  already  lasted  twenty-six  years,  aided  by  every  human 
advantage  which  it  was  possible  to  possess.  Not  a  few,  he 
adds,  have  professed  Protestantism,  with  the  hope  of  "  bettering 
their  present  condition ;  but  almost  in  every  instance,  where  a 
contrary  conduct  insured  present  benefit,  the  adults  have 
renounced  their  lately  received  opinions,  and  held  aloof  from 
their  instructors."* 

In  1841,  we  have  three  witnesses,  of  very  different  characters, 
but  all  conversant  with  the  natives  and  with  their  habits.  Mr. 
Bidwill,  though  a  friend  and  advocate  of  the  missionaries,  says, 
"  I  have  certainly  observed  that  the  '  missionary'  natives  are 
the  most  impertinent  and  least  willing  to  work."f  Mr.  Bright, 
a  member  of  the  medical  profession,  is  more  emphatic.  The 
converts,  he  says,  "keep  the  Sabbath,"  go  to  church,  and  even 
"subscribe  to  the  Church  and  Wesleyan  missionaries;"  and 
then  he  adds,  "they  are,  however,  no  more  honest  in  their 
general  transactions  than  the  rest;"  and  again,  "the  slight 
hold  religion  has  of  them  is  frequently  attested  by  their  aber- 
rations under  common  temptations."  Once  more:  "I  should 
say  that  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  native  population  can  read 
and  write  their  own  language,  and  that  they  have  a  sense  of 
moral  obligations.  Further  I  would  not  give  them  credit,  as  it 
is  doubtful  whether  piety  has  entered  the  soul.";):  Lastly,  a 
Catholic  missionary,  the  Abbe  Petijean,  who  visited  the  natives 
at  Wangarora  this  year,  whom  he  found  "  almost  entirely  Prot- 
estant," and  making  habitually  the  most  ludicrous  perversions 
of  the  Bible,  says,  "  Will  it  be  believed  that  these  poor  people 
did  not  know  that  there  is  one  God  in  Three  Persons ;  that  the 
Word  became  Man  and  died  for  us ;  yet  their  teachers  have 
been  in  New  Zealand  for  more  than  twenty  years  !"§ 

In  the  following  year,  1842,  Dr.  Dieffenbach,  though  he 
endeavors  to  make  the  best  possible  case  for  the  missionaries, 
gives  this  account  of  the  effects  of  Protestant  conversion. 
"  Instead  of  an  active,  warlike  race,  they  have  become  eaters  of 
potatoes,  neglecting  their  industrious  pursuits  .  .  .  and  they 
pass  their  lives  in  eating,  smoking,  and  sleeping."  In  several 
places  he  indicates  that  they  retain  as  Protestants  their  pagan 

*  Manners  and  Customs,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  235. 

f  Rambles,  &c.,  p.  20. 

i  A  History  of  New  Zealand,  &c.,  by  John  Bright,  M.R.C.S.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  127 

§  Annals,  vol.  ii.,  p.  154. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  441 

customs,  and  that  they  exhibit  the  influence  of  their  new  reli- 

§ion  chiefly  by  a  superstitious  and  irrational  observance  of  the 
abbath,  which  "the  ill-judged  directions  of  the  missionaries"* 
have  taught  them  to  regard  as  the  capital  tenet  of  Christianity. 
At  the  same  date,  Mr.  Heaphy,  who  had  visited  the  various 
provinces  of  New  Zealand,  thus  recounts  the  results  of  his  ob- 
servation. "  I  estimate  the  good  which  the  missionaries  have 
done  as  about  the  same  which  would  have  resulted  from  the 
settlement,  for  the  same  period,  of  a  like  number  of  respectable 
settlers  of  various  avocations,  with  the  exception  that  the 
settlers  would  probably  have  taught  the  natives  many  useful 
arts,  and  introduced  industry  amongst  them,  which  the  mis- 
sionaries have  not."  And  presently  he  adds,  "Much  of  what 
the  missionaries  have  endeavored  to  teach  the  New  Zealanders 
has  had  any  but  a  good  effect  upon  them."f 

In  1843,  Mr.  King,  an  unusually  candid  missionary,  says: 
"  The  number  of  natives  under  Christian  instruction  is  very 
large,  but  the  number  of  those  who  are  decidedly  Christian  is 
very  small. "$  Yet  twenty-nine  years  had  now  elapsed  since 
the  Protestant  missionaries  entered  New  Zealand,  and  they  had 
to  deal  with  perhaps  the  most  apt  and  intelligent  race  of  bar- 
barians in  the  world. 

The  year  1845  furnishes  six  witnesses.  The  American  Com- 
modore Wilkes,  who  commanded  the  United  States  exploring 
expedition,  relates,  that  "perhaps  those  who  have  become 
somewhat  attached  to  the  Christian  religion  may  be  a  little, 
improved," — but  he  confesses  that  he  only  heard  of  a  solitary 
instance  of  such  improvement.  "  The  missionaries  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church,"  he  adds,  "  appear  to  keep  aloof  from  the  natives, 
and  an  air  of  stiffness  and  pride  seems  to  prevail.  They  appear 
to  be  doing  but  little  in  making  converts.  Most  of  the  natives 
have  morning  and  evening  prayers,  but  their  practices  and  char- 
acter show  any  thing  but  a  reform  in  their  lives."§  Mr.  Brodie 
notices  in  the  same  year,  as  a  proof  of  the  feeble  influence  of 
Protestantism,  that  Dr.  Selwyn  and  his  colleague  Dr.  Williams 
tried  in  vain  to  prevent  their  own  followers  from  fighting.j 
Mr.  Brown  at  the  same  date  observes, — and  his  position  gave 
him  unusual  opportunities  of  judging, — that  "the  Church  mis- 
sionaries in  particular' — meaning  the  Episcopalians — "have 
not  found  their  way  to  the  hearts  of  the  natives,  and  are  not  so 

*  Travels,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  110. 

J  Narrative,  &c.,  ch.  v.,  p.  52. 
Polynesia  and  New  Zealand,  by  the  Right  Rev.  M.  Russel,  ch.  x.,  p.  361 
edition). 

§  United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  by  Charles  Wilkes,  U.S.N.,  vol.  iii., 
ch.  xii.,  pp.  400,  401. 
|  Remarks,  &c.,  p.  89. 


442  CHAPTER  V. 

much  reapected  as  they  ought  to  have  been.  One  powerful 
cause  of  this  has  been  their  adoption  of  a  peculiarly  hard 
and  illiberal  system  of  dealing  with  the  natives  in  commercial 
matters,  which  has  produced  a  highly  unfavorable  contrast  in 
this  respect  with  the  conduct  of  the  other  settlers."'"  Thirty 
years,  it  seems,  had  effected  no  change  in  their  character. 

Mr.  Wakefield  confirms,  in  his  well-known  work,  the  same 
facts.  Of  the  so-called  Christian  natives  lie  says,  "  they  ap- 
peared to  be  tamed  without  being  civilized  ;"  and  he  gives  ex- 
amples of  the  imprudent  boasts  and  exaggerations  by  which 
the  missionaries  too  often  attempted  to  deceive  their  supporters 
at  home.  Hongi  and  Waikato,  two  New  Zealand  chiefs,  were 
sent  over  and  exhibited  by  them  to  English  audiences  as  "  perfect 
and  very  devout  Christians;"  but  as  soon  as  the  former, enriched 
by  the  presents  of  his  credulous  admirers,  returned  to  his  own 
country,  "  he  appeared  in  his  true  character  as  an  ambitious 
and  blood-thirsty  warrior."  One  of  his  first  acts  \vas  to  destroy 
"  the  Wesleyan  mission  at  Wangaroa."  But  without  multiply- 
ing these  characteristic  details,  let  it  suffice  to  quote  the  follow- 
ing impressive  statement,  in  which  Mr.  Waketield  appreciates 
the  historical  results  of  Protestant  missions  in  New  Zealand : 
"It  was  a  matter  of  constant  observation,  among  all  classes  of 
settlers,  that  the  results  of  the  missionary  system  of  instruction 
were  not  by  any  means  satisfactory.  At  Wellington  no  less 
than  at  Wanganui,  and  at  other  places  where  there  were  no 
white  settlers,  this  fact  began  to  startle  the  impartial  observer. 
The  only  good  result  that  appeared  to  have  been  obtained,  was 
the  strict  and  rigid  adherence  to  the  mere  forms  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  But  it  was  hardly  a  matter  of  doubt  that  the 
conversion  penetrated  no  deeper  than  the  mere  forms.  As  a 
body,  they  were  distinctly  inferior  in  point  of  moral  character  to 
the  natives  who  remained  with  their  ancient  customs  unchanged. 
.  .  .  At  some  places,  such  asPatea,  where  their  religious  enthu- 
siasm was  carried,  in  form,  to  the  most  extravagant  pitch,  they 
maintained  the  very  worst  character  for  honesty,  and  courtesy 
to  a  stranger.  It  must  be  remembered  that  no  white  man  had 
dwelt  there.  The  missionary  system  had  therefore  enjoyed  a 
fair  trial,  without  the  interference  of  civilization. "f 

In  the  same  year,  another  Protestant  witness  writes  as  follows 
from  Wanganui :  "  I  state  my  belief  that  the  missionaries  have 
done  very  little,  if  any  thing,  towards  the  improvement  of  either 
the  civil  or  moral  condition  of  the  Maoris.  It  will  be  urged 
that  the  natives  must  be  better  than  before,  as  they  are  nearly 

*  Ch.  ii.,  p.  84. 

f  Adventure,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  11. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   ANTIPODES.  443 

all  Christians.  Truly,  as  far  as  the  name  they  are — but  what 
else  ?  1  appeal  to  any  one  who  knows  any  thing  of  them, 
whether  they  are  one  jot  more  moral  or  more  civilized  than 
their  neighbors  the  k  devils?  as  the  unchristian  natives  are 
styled  par  excellence  ;  whether,  in  fact,  you  would  not  sooner, 
at  any  time,  trust  or  believe  a  'devil'  rather  than  a  mission- 
ary?"* Another  witness  from  the  same  place,  and  in  the 
same  volume,  says  of  the  Protestant  converts,  "Generally 
speaking,  they  are  distinguished  from  the  unconverted  natives 
as  rogues,  thieves,  and  liars."f  A  third  declares  that  "  po- 
lygamy is  still  not  uncommon,  the  principal  chief  at  Putiki 
having  three  wives,  all  missionaries.*^ 

Lastly,  still  in  the  same  year,  Dr.  Selwyn  tells  us  of  "  a  na- 
tive teacher  who  relapsed  into  sin,"  and  of  a  chief  who  told  him 
that  "  his  own  backwardness  of  belief  was  owing  to  the  bad 
aondart  of  the  baptized  natives"^  Thirty-one  years  had  now 
elapsed. 

In  1S46,  Mr.  Fitzroy,  a  friend  and  companion  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, reports  still  more  unfavorably.  "  Religion,"  he  says, 
fc4  has  lost  much  of  the  limited  influence  which  was  acquired 
previous  to  1.S40."  And  then  he  explains  his  meaning.  Hith- 
erto, the  Protestants  had  at  least  none  but  friendly  witnesses  of 
their  failure  in  this  chosen  field  of  their  operations.  This 
advantage  they  were  now  losing  forever.  "  Roman  Catholics," 
Mr.  Fitzroy  adds,  "have  entered  the  field  which  was  exclusively 
Protestant  till  1838. **|  It  was  apparently  high  time,  and  we 
shall  see  presently  what  welcome  they  received. 

In  1817,  .Mr.  Angas,  a  friend  of  Dr.  Dieffeubach,  still  notes 
the  force  of  the  old  superstitions,  and  records  that  "even  those 
natives  who  have  embraced  Christianity,"  are  subject  to  their 
influence,  and  especially  to  "the  dread  of  the  supposed  power 
of  witchcraft.''^" 

In  184r!f, — such  a  history  should  be  pursued  to  the  end, — a 
British  officer  visits  New  Zealand  on  service.  He  is  amazed  to 
find  himself  lighting  against  "  Protestant  natives,"  of  whom  he 
probably  knew  nothing  but  from  the  florid  narratives  of  mis- 
sionary records,  and  this  is  his  reflection  upon  the  curious  fact: 
u  It  appears  to  me  unaccountable,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true, 
that  nearly  the  whole  of  the  natives  who  took  part  with  John 
lieki  against  the  government  in  the  .Bay  of  Islands  were  1'rotr 

*  Letters  from  Wanganui,  p.  8. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  35. 

j  Ibid.,  p.  21. 

tj  Church  in  the  Colonies,  Number  vii.,  p.  44. 

j|  Remarks  on  New  Zealand  in  184G,  by  Robert  Fitzroy,  ch.vii.,  p.  63. 

*|[  tiacagc,  Life,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  &il. 


4AA  CHAPTER  V. 

estants"*  He  does  not,  however,  notice  the  curious  fact,  that 
on  the  very  day  previous  to  that  on  which  Heki  and  his  fol- 
lowers attacked  the  British  force,  slaying  their  commander,  and 
forcing  them  to  retire,  these  Anglican  disciples  had  attended  a 
religious  service  conducted  by  a  Protestant  Archdeacon.f 

lieki  himself  was  a  notable  specimen  of  the  influence  of 
Protestant "  conversion,"  and  deserves  a  moment's  notice.  "  This 
man  was  educated  by  the  missionaries,"  says  Dr.  Thomson, 
"  and  had  acquired  a  deep  knowledge  of  the  Bible ;  he  was 
baptized  in  the  presence  of  the  British  Resident,  and  the  tears 
he  shed  on  the  occasion  showed  how  keenly  he  felt  the  solem- 
nity of  that  Sacrament."  And  what  was  the  effect  of  Protest- 
antism upon  this  noble  savage,  "  whose  mind  was  of  the  order 
found  in  the  front  rank  of  intellectual  progress?"  Here  is  the 
answer.  "  He  fell  back  into  heathenism,  and  took  delight  in 
religious  disputes ;  he  argued  against  the  truths  of  Scripture, 
and  confounded  Christians  with  their  own  weapons."  And  that 
the  miserable  form  of  Christianity  presented  to  him,  and  es- 
pecially its  incessant  divisions  and  the  malice  displayed  in 
them,  produced  this  effect,  is  proved  by  his  own  expressive 
taunt :  "  One  bee-hive  is  very  good,  several  are  troublesome.'5^ 

In  1850,  Mr.  Brunner  thus  describes  the  Anglican  mission 
at  Taramakau  :  "The  natives  here  are  members  of  the  Church 
of  England,  and  attend  service  regularly  ;  but  they  appear  to 
be  very  ignorant  of  its  nature  or  meaning. "§ 

The  year  1851  supplies  three  valuable  witnesses.  The  first 
is  Mr.  Shortland,  a  friend  of  Dr.  Selwyn,  and  apparently  him- 
self a  missionary.  This  gentleman  gives  us  a  description  of 
the  higher  class  of  "  converts,"  whose  special  merits  had  earned 
for  them  the  lucrative  distinction  of  being  employed  as  assist- 
ant preachers  of  Protestant  doctrine,  and  by  the  aid  of  whose 
superior  intelligence  it  was  proposed  to  act  vigorously  upon  the 
native  mind.  Mr.  Shortland  employs  one  of  them,  who  had 
been  "educated  in  the  house  of  an  English  missionary,"  to 
preach  for  him  on  Sunday.  It  was  a  rash  experiment.  "  I 
afterwards  saw  cause,"  Mr.  Shortland  observes,  "  to  regret  that 
I  had  not  dissuaded  him  from  undertaking  an  office  he  was  little 
qualified  to  discharge."  Of  another  "native  preacher"  of  the 
same  class,  he  says,  "  as  parts  of  his  composition  were  often  very 
absurd,  I  thought  it  right  to  forbid  him  the  use  of  extemporary 
prayer,  and  to  confine  him  to  our  old  forms."  But  it  was  only 

*  Reminiscences  of  Twelve  Months'  Service  in  New  Zealand,  by  Lieut.  H.  F. 
McKillop,  R.N.,  p.  86. 

f  Flanagan,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  115. 

\  Dr.  Thomson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  96. 

§  Journal  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  vol.  xx.,  p.  358. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  445 

by  threatening  to  dismiss  him  altogether,  which  would  have 
involved  the  loss  of  his  salary,  that  he  restrained  his  dangerous 
improvisation.  Speaking  generally  of  the  whole  class,  he  writes 
as  follows:  "The  missionaries  anticipated  good  results  from 
sending  out  the  best-instructed  of  their  young  converts  as 
preachers  and  missionaries  among  the  more  distant  tribes,  whom 
they  were  unable  themselves  to  visit.  The  attempt  seemed  at 
first  crowned  with  extraordinary  success — vast  numbers  being 
daily  added  to  the  body  of  professing  Christians — and  very 
favorable  reports  on  the  subject  were  constantly  forwarded  to 
the  society  in  England.  But  after  a  year  or  two  it  was  discov- 
ered that  great  abuses  had  been  introduced  into  the  practice  of 
the  Christian  religion  by  these  native  missionaries."*  Mr. 
Shortland  has  told  us,  what  we  might  safely  have  assumed, 
that  only  the  "  best-instructed"  were  employed  in  these  func- 
tions— and  these  were  the  best !  We  have  already  seen  that 
they  "  raised  a  very  considerable  income,"  by  levying  contri- 
butions in  kind  from  the  flocks  intrusted  to  them  by  the  English 
missionaries. 

Mr.  Fox,  in  the  same  year,  gives  further  examples  of  the 
veracity  of  the  missionary  reports,  and  of  the  real  character  of 
missionary  converts.  "  An  intelligent  clergyman,"  he  says, 
describes  Rauperaha,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  these  con- 
verts, as  "now  to  be  seen  every  morning  in  his  accustomed 
place,  repeating  those  blessed  truths  which  teach  him  to  love  the 
Lord  with  all  his  heart."  We  can  imagine  the  sensation  which 
this  pleasing  picture  would  create  at  a  missionary  meeting  in 
England,  and  the  lavish  donations  which  it  could  not  fail  to 
provoke.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  virtues  of  this  eminent 
con  vert  existed  only  in  the  imagination  of  the  "  intelligent  clergy- 
man." Only  "  a  lew  days  before  his  death,"  Mr.  Fox  tells  us, 
"  two  settlers  called  to  see  him.  While  there,  a  neighboring 
missionary  came  in,  and  ottered  him  the  consolations  of  religion. 
Rauperaha  demeaned  himself  in  a  manner  highly  becoming  such 
an  occasion  ;  but  the  moment  the  missionary  was  gone,  he 
turned  to  his  other  visitors  and  said,  '  What  is  the  use  of  all  that 
nonsense  ?  that  will  do  my'  belly  no  good.'  He  then  turned  the 
conversation  on  the  Wanganui  races,  where  one  of  his  guests 
had  been  running  a  horse,  f  Captain  Cruise  relates  a  parallel 
story  of  the  chief  Tooi,  who  had  been  long  in  England,  where 
he  was  exhibited  as  a  model  convert;^  and  Mr.  Hursthouse 
informs  us  that  his  fellow-christian  Rauperaha  used  to  say  of 


*  The  Southern  Districts  of  New  Zealand,  p.  268. 

f  The  Six  Colonies,  p.  73. 

\  Captain  Cruise's  Journal,  p.  38. 


446  CHAPTER  V. 

Captain  Fitzroy,  the  governor,  who  was  as  easily  beguiled  as 
the  intelligent  clergyman, — "he  is  soft,  he  is  a  pumpkin." 

Mr.  Fox  sums  up  his  own  observations  in  these  remarkable 
words :  *•  I  am  often  asked  what  the  effect  of  the  influence  of 
the  missionaries  has  been.  My  answer  is — Up  to  a  certain 
point,  beneficial ;  beyond  that,  injurious  in  a  very  high  degree" 
Of  their  converts  he  gives  a  description  worthy  of  careful 
study,  and  which  we  only  omit  for  the  sake  of  brevity. 

Our  last  witness  for  this  year,  the  thirty-seventh  of  Prot- 
estant efforts  in  New  Zealand,  is  a  gentleman  engaged  in 
commercial  pursuits,  and  who  gives,  from  actual  observation, 
an  account  of  the  missionaries  themselves  which  we  can  hardly 
venture  to  quote  in  full.  "It  is  right  that  the  world  should 
know,'7  he  says,  "that  there  have  been  as  many  wolves  as 
shepherds  amongst  the  folds."  And  then  he  continues  thus : 
"  I  esteem  and  venerate  holy  men  who  act  according  to  their 
profession,  and  am  aware  that  no  man  is  infallible;  but  when 
one  yields  to  the  'old  man'  the  corrupt  portion  of  his  nature, 
and  finds  himself  incapable  of  subduing  his  sensual  passions, 
let  him  resign  the  sacerdotal  character,  and  not  doubly  pollute 
his  soul  and  body,  bringing  contempt  on  the  missionary  cause, 
and  standing  forth  to  the  heathen  a  mocking  comment  on  the 
Word  of  God."  We  can  hardly  be  surprised  when  this  gentle- 
man adds — and  the  examples  of  Rauperaha,  Hongki,  and  other 
chiefs  may  assist  us  to  believe  him — that  "  instead  of  improv- 
ing the  native  character,  the  missionaries  have  superinduced, 
upon  their  other  bad  qualities,  hypocrisy  of  the  deepest  dye. 
I  speak  dispassionately  when  I  say,  that  I  conscientiously  be- 
lieve the  moral  character  of  the  natives  has  not  been  improved 
by  missionary  intercourse."* 

We  have  almost  exhausted  our  witnesses.  In  1851,  another 
Protestant  traveller  thus  describes  a  scene  in  a  church.  "  The 
service  consisted  in  singing  a  psalm,  rapidly  reading  a  chapter, 
and  as  rapidly  reading  some  of  the  Church  prayers.  I  fancied 
I  saw  a  resemblance  to  the  lifeless  formality  with  which  some 
of  our  cathedral  daily  services  are  attended. "f  We  almost 
expected  this  familiar  image. 

In  the  same  year  we  have  one  of  those  conclusive  testimonies 
which  leave  nothing  to  be  added.  The  Rev.  Robert  Young, 
who  went  to  New  Zealand  as  a  "  deputation"  from  the  Wes- 
leyan  Society,  and  had  110  personal  interest  in  the  work  which 
he  was  only  charged  to  examine  and  appreciate,  thus  describes 
its  real  character,  exactly  forty  years  after  it  had  been  com- 


*  Rowings  in  the  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  233. 
f  A  Summer'*  Excursion  in  N.  Z.,  p.  178. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  447 

menced  by  Marsden's  advantageous  purchase.  "  In  many  cases 
their  Christianity  is  merely  nominal.  They  feel  not  its  saving 
power."* 

In  1855,  an  English  lady,  of  a  class  which  only  exists  in 
England  and  America,  produced  a  book  which  she  entitled 
"  The  Gospel  in  New  Zealand."  It  need  not  detain  ns  long. 
When  the  natives  scoff  at  her  missionary  friends,  whom  she 
depicts  as  at  least  equal  to  the  first  Apostles,  she  calls  them 
"  barbarians,  whose  extermination  seemed  far  more  desirable 
than  their  conversion" — a  sentiment  in  which  zeal  seems  to 
triumph  over  charity.  But  she  says  other  things  more  worthy 
of  notice.  Speaking  of  an  epoch  more  than  twenty  years 
subsequent  to  their  establishment,  she  relates  how  "the  mis- 
sionaries mourned  over  the  unfruitfulness  of  their  labors  as  to 
the  conversion  of  souls,"  and  then  comes  the  following  passage, 
in  which  we  might  suspect  a  lurking  irony,  if  she  were  capable 
of  jesting  on  so  grave  a  subject :  "  It  had  been  comparatively 
easy,"  she  remarks,  "  to  dig  their  fields  and  plant  their  gar- 
dens, and  it  was  pleasant  to  gather  the  abundant  produce,  to 
drop  a  peach-stone  into  the  ground,  and  ere  long  to  enjoy  the 
delicious  fruit ;  but" — and  then  she  confesses,  in  a  language 
peculiar  to  herself,  that  their  spiritual  husbandry  was  much 
less  fruitful. 

Let  us  hear  this  lady  once  more.  In  spite  of  her  wish  to 
represent  her  missionary  friends  as  almost  more  than  mortal  in 
their  virtues,  she  draws  but  a  gloomy  picture  of  their  success, 
and  terminates  her  lamentations  with  this  characteristic  dis- 
course. "The  dangers  of  Popery  are  added  to  -those  of  world- 
liness !  Tiie  efforts  made  by  this  false  religion  are  unceasing  ; 
and  though  in  those  districts  that  have  long  had  the  blessing  of 
Scriptural  teaching,  they  have  failed  in  producing  much  lasting 
effect," — we  shall  learn  more  on  that  subject  presently, — "yet 
in  the  newer  districts  they  have  been  but  too  successful  among 
the  half-awakened  and  the  remaining  heathen,  and  cause  our 
missionaries  much  anxiety. "f 

In  1857,  Mr.  Paul  fitly  sums  up  the  history  of  Protestantism 
in  New  Zealand  by  the  usual  announcement  that  "  the  New 
Zealanders  are  annually  on  the  decrease  ;"  and  ventures  to 
,  prophesy  that  the  final  result  of  the  English  rule  will  be,  that 
"  they  will  become  nearly  if  not  entirely  extinct. ":£  And 
English  legislators  appear  to  accept  this  result  as  inevitable, 
and  even  desirable*.  "  We  have  planted  England  in  New 
Zealand,"  said  one  of  their  number,  in  a  recent  debate  of  the 

*  The  Southern  World,  ch.  vii.,  p.  161. 

The  Gospel  in  New  Zealand,  by  Miss  Tuckei;  ch.  x.,  p.  117 ;  ch.  xx.,  p.  253. 
Australia,  &c.,  p.  252. 


448  CHAPTER  V. 

House  of  Commons :  "  The  Englishman  will  destroy  the  Maori, 
arid  the  sooner  the  Maori  is  destroyed  the  better."* 

Lastly,  in  1859,  the  whole  series  is  closed  by  various  and 
pregnant  testimonies,  of  which  it  will  suffice  to  notice  only  a 
few.  Dr.  Thomson,  whose  sympathies  were  all  on  the  side  of 
the  Protestant  missionaries,  thus  describes  the  final  result  of 
their  labors  after  fifty  years  of  costly  effort.  Thirty-six  per  cent., 
he  says,  of  the  surviving  population  are  still  avowed  pagans  ; 
while  of  the  nominal  Christians  this  is  his  candid  account : 
"  The  Christianity  of  many  of  them  is  a  rude  mixture  of  pagan- 
ism and  the  cross,  an  adoption  strengthened  by  superstition 
more  than  a  conversion.  Missionaries  will  deny  this;  but 
Christian  natives,  suffering  under  sickness,  frequently  appeal 
to  their  old  gods  for  health" — the  reader  will  call  to  mind  the 
same  extraordinary  fact  in  Ceylon, — "and  healthy  Christians 
dread  violating  the  tapu,  lest  the  gods  who  watch  over  that  code 
should  punish  them  with  sickness. "f  And  then  he  sums  up  the 
whole  history  of  half  a  century  in  these  impressive  words  :  "  The 
work  of  Christianity  in  New  Zealand  is  only  begun." 

In  the  same  year,  1859,  an  official  document  was  published 
at  Auckland,  by  order  of  the  colonial  government,  and  with  the 
revelations  contained  in  that  document  we  may  at  length  deter- 
mine, without  the  risk  of  error,  the  real  influence  of  Protestant 
missions  in  New  Zealand,  after  an  expenditure  which  we  may 
imagine,  but  can  hardly  estimate.  And  first,  this  curious 
paper,  which  professes  to  investigate  the  true  causes  of  the 
rapid  decrease  of  the  native  population  of  the  islands,  attests 
the  grave  fact,  that  it  had  already  dwindled  at  that  date  to 
fifty-six  thousand  four  hundred  and  nine.; — so  that  nearly 
seven-eighths  had  disappeared,  if  Cook's  estimate  were  true, 
since  the  white  man  set  foot  in  New  Zealand. 

Secondly,  all  the  witnesses  concerned  in  obtaining  materials 
for  the  solution  of  the  problem  proposed  to  them  are  perfectly 
unanimous  on  these  points, — that  nothing  can  now  arrest  the 
decay  of  the  population,  and  that  universal  immorality  and 
misery  are  its  chief  determining  causes.  u  An  increasing  taste 
for  spirit-drinking,"  says  Mr.  Halse,  "  is  prevalent  among  both 
sexes,  but  more  particularly  with  the  young,  who  resort  to  all 
kinds  of  devices  to  obtain  it."  "  In  my  opinion,"  observes  Mr. 
Fenton,  by  whom  the  evidence  was  collected  and  printed,  "the 
social  condition  of  the  Maoris  is  inferior  to  what  it  was  five 
years  ago.  Their  houses  are  worse,  their  cultivation  ixiore 
neglected,  and  their  mode  of  living  not  improved.  The  mills 

*  The  Times,  March  14,  1862. 
f  Vol.  i.,  part  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  317. 


MISSIONS    IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  449 

in  some  places  have  not  run  for  some  time,  and  the  poverty  of 
the  people  generally  is  extreme.  At  the  same  time  there  has 
appeared  a  remarkable  activity  of  mind,  directed  to  the  devel- 
opment of  political  ideas."  '•  There  is  reason  to  fear,"  he  adds, 
that  nothing  can  save  "a  population  which  has  once  reached 
such  a  state  of  decrepitude  as  that  exhibited  by  the  Maori  in- 
habitants of  this  country."  Lastly,  one  of  the  missionaries, 
and  they  are  all  of  one  mind,  except  when  writing  to  their  em- 
ployers, declares,  that  "  the  greatest  cause  of  decrease  is 
iincleanness,  outwardly  and  inwardly,  in  diet,  dress,  and  hab- 
itation, in  body  and  mind,  in  all  their  thoughts,  words*  and 
actions"  Such  have  been  the  effects  of  Protestantism  upon 
this  noble  race,  and  to  this  climax  Dr.  Thomson  points  when  he 
says,  "  the  work  of  Christianity  in  New  Zealand  is  only  begun."' 
That  work  will  probably  be  at  length  complete  when  there  is  no 
longer  a  New  Zealander  in  existence,  and  paganism  will  have- 
disappeared  when  the  last  pagan  has  perished  from  the  land. 

The  facts  which  have  now  been  traced  for  us  by  so  many 
Protestant  witnesses,  each  independent  of  the  other,  and  all 
recording  the  results  of  personal  observation,  do  not  require  any 
comment.  This  was  the  fruit  of  half  a  century  of  missionary 
labor.  This  was  all  that  Protestantism  could  do,  as  its  own 
agents  confess,  with  such  human  aids  and  appliances  as  never 
missionaries  possessed  before,  for  perhaps  the  noblest  race  of 
barbarians  now  extant.  To  uproot  their  heathen  virtues,  which 
might  at  least  have  earned  a  temporal  reward,  and  to  substitute 
for  them  new  and  strange  vices — indolence,  treachery,  and 
avarice;  to  teach  them  by  their  own  example, that  the  Christian 
religion  was  so  worthless,  that  even. its  minisiers  might  be  types 
of  selfishness, luxury,  and  worldliness;  to  abuse  their  simplicity 
by  mean  crafr,and  rob  them  both  of  their  land  and  its  produce,, 
with  a  .Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  fraudulent  contract  in  the  other;, 
and  finally,  to  cheat  souls  which  were  capable  of  supernatural 
virtue  by  a  narrow  and  superstitious  formalism,  or  corrupt 
them  into  systematic  hypocrisy;  such,  as  their  own  associates 
eagerly  attest,  has  been  the  work  of  Protestant  missionaries  in 
New  Zealand.  Yet  even  this  is  not  all. 

There  was  still  another  evil,  the  same  which  has  made  Eng- 
land a  by-word  throughout  Christendom,  which  it  was  possible 
to  carry  across  the  sea,  and  transplant  even  in  her  most  remote 
dependency.  The  war  of  sects,  the  license  of  crude  and  shifting 
opinion,  the  strife  of  texts,  and  endless  discord  of  opposing 
creeds — it  was  necessary  that  New  Zealand  should  possess 
them  all.  Fatal  gift!  against  which  even  pagans  would  have 
lifted  up  the  cry  of  fear  and  supplication,  if  they  had  known 
what  it  would  bring  in  its  train.  But  this  is  the  fina-l  chastise- 


450  CHAPTER  V. 

merit  which  ages  of  impenitence  have  brought  upon  the 
heathen  world  in  these  last  days,  and  which  not  even  apostles 
—though  they  were  as  wise  as  St.  Paul,  as  mighty  as  St. 
Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  or  as  fervent  as  St.  Francis  Xavier 
— could  now  avert  from  them.  Protestantism  is  the  last 
scourge  of  heathenism. 

Let  us  see,  before  we  conclude  this  history,  what  the  mis- 
sionaries themselves  relate  of  the  effects  of  religious  divisions 
in  New  Zealand.  "  We  need  not  wonder,"  says  Dr.  Selwyn, 
"  at  the  controversies  which  are  raging  at  home,  when  even  in 
the  most  distant  parts  of  this  most  remote  of  all  countries,  in 
places  hitherto  un visited  by  English  missionaries," — he  is 
speaking  of  Ruapuke,  to  which  only  native  teachers  had  been 
sent — "  the  spirit  of  controversy  is  everywhere  found  to  pre- 
vail, in  many  cases  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  all  simplicity  of 
faith."*  Such  is  the  phenomenon  upon  which,  in  conclusion, 
we  must  oifer  a  few  remarks. 

The  fact  admitted  by  Dr.  Selwyn  is  illustrated,  in  still  more 
energetic  language,  by  a  multitude  of  witnesses.  Even  in  the 
most  retired  spots,  observes  Mr.  Brunner,  in  1850,  u  though  in 
some  places  there  are  only  six  or  seven  natives,  yet  they  have 
separate  places  of  worship — Church  of  England  and  Wesley  an 
— and  are  always  quarrelling  about  religion."f  "  Contention, 
animosity,  distrust,  and  intolerance,"  says  the  Rev.  Elijah 
Hoole,  "are  but  the  mere  outlines  of  that  state  of  feeling  which 
at  present  exists  among  our  divided  people.  The  spirit  of 
Christianity  is  lost  in  the  form,  and  the  very  form  itself  has 
become  the  subject  of  incessant  and  angry  dispute.  These, 
together  with  other  circumstances  of  a  painful  character,  have 
contributed  to  destroy  much  of  that  missionary  influence  which 
it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  possess.":): 

In  earlier  times  they  made  war  on  each  other  in  tribes,  and 
now  that  they  are  restrained  by  the  strong  hand  of  government, 
they  display  their  ferocity  in  sects.  "  Tribes  hereditarily  hostile," 
says  Dr.  Thomson,  "  adopted  through  jealousy  different  modes 
of'faith  ;  and  these  converted  New  Zealanders  were  ready  to 
abuse  each  other  for  religious  creeds  they  did  not  understand, 
and  the  precepts  of  which  they  daily  disregarded."  "Schis- 
matic differences  have  already  arisen  among  the  natives,"  says 
Mr.  Polack,in  1840, "who  have  ranged  themselves  on  different 
Hides.  In  1837,  a  serious  tight,  during  which  several  persons 
were  shot  dead  or  wounded,  arose  between  the  Wesleyan  neo- 


*  Church  in  the  Colonies,  No.  viii.,  p.  23. 
Journal  of  Royal  Geographical  Society,  vol.  xx.,  p.  361. 
Year  Book  of  Missions,  pp.  213,  222. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  451 

phytes  and  the  sticklers  to  the  old  belief."  "I  found,"  says 
Mr.  Shortland  ten  years  later,  "  that  the  professing  Christians 
were  divided  between  the  Church  of  England  and  the  Wesley  - 
ans,  the  two  parties  being  very  hostile  to  each  other.'"  "  The 
most  revolting  religious  feud  was  going  on  at  Waimate"  Mr. 
Wakefield  relates  in  1845,  "between  near  relations  in  two 
septs  of  this  tribe — Wesleyan  and  Episcopalian — when  I  passed 
through  the  district."  "  The  whole  population  of  natives,"  he 
adds,  "struck  me  as  being  in  the  most  repulsive  and  pitiable 
condition.  They  were  all  'missionaries,'  but  divided  in  their 
creeds.  The  most  dreadful  religious  schisms  occurred  daily 
between  the  nearest  relations.  And  this  virulence  of  dispute, 
on  the  most  abstruse  as  well  as  the  most  trifling  points  of 
religion,  both  in  form  and  doctrine,  I  found  very  much  re- 
placing the  strict  puritan  observances  and  adherence  to  absurd 
exaggerated  forms." 

In  the  province  of  Otago,  Mr.  Paul  says  that  even  the 
colonists  fought  with  "  a  virulence  that  turns  the  sanctity  of 
their  professed  Christianity  into  ridicule,  and  makes  religion  a 
subject  of  discussion  for  arousing  the  worst  passions  of  man." 

"  The  minds  of  the  natives,"  Mr.  Brown  reports,  "  are  per- 
fectly distracted.  The  first  effect  is  the  rejection  of  the  teach- 
ing  of  both  parties.  It  is  lamentable,  however,  to  think  that 
the  influence  of  religion  has  no  sooner  subdued  and  eradicated 
their  savage  feuds  and  enmities,  than  that  very  religion  is  con- « 
verted  into  an  occasion  of  strife  and  bloodshed.  .  .  The  natives 
are  now  at  open  war  with  each  other ;  they  have  forsaken  their 
own  animosities  for  the  no  less  deadly  hatred  and  enmity  en- 
gendered by  the  teaching  of  different  professors  of  the  same 
meek  and  merciful  religion  ;  and  unless  some  effectual  remedy 
be  devised  for  the  growing  evil,  all  the  good  that  missionaries 
have  ever  done  may  soon  be  as  nothing  compared  with  the 
evil  which  threatens  to  accompany  it." 

"I  had  heard  that  religious  differences  prevailed  to  a  serious 
extent,"  says  another  writer,  "  but  I  did  not  believe  it  possible 
that  these  differences  should  lead  to  such  defined  separation."* 
The  agents  of  the  missionaries,  we  are  told  by  one  who  held 
the  office  of  Protector  of  the  Aborigines,  "busied  themselves 
with  making  proselytes  with  more  of  the  native  than  the 
Christian  spirit,  and  have  caused  a  schism  between  the  inhabit- 
ants of  almost  every  settlement,  one  party  styling  themselves 
children  of  Wesley,  the  other  the  church  of  Paihai.  The 
distraction  of  their  minds  thus  caused  has  essentially  interfered 
with  their  happiness,  by  producing  ill-feeling  and  separation 

*  A  Summer's  Excursion,  p.  148. 


452  CHAPTER   V. 

among  members  of  the  same  family.  This  would  seem  to  sug- 
gest the  expediency  of  not  sending  missionaries  of  different 
breeds,  among  the  same  tribe  at  least,  as  they  must  neutralize 
each  other's  labors,  and  may  possibly  cause  an  uncertainty  of 
belief  in  the  minds  of  the  natives,  ultimately  destructive  of  the 
cause  they  seek  to  promote."* 

Finally,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Turton,  a  Wesleyan  missionary,  com- 
pletes the  narrative  in  these  terms  :  "  We  have  the  awful  sight 
of  father  and  son,  mother  and  daughter,  hating  each  other 
with  a  mortal  hatred.  In  some  cases  they  are  dividing  them- 
selves into  separate  pas  ;  in  other  cases  into  separate  divisions 
of  the  same  j9#/  and  in  one  village,  within  eight  miles  of  this 
settlement,  has  the  party  spirit  risen  so  high  between  near 
kinsmen  that  one  of  these  pas  has  erected  a  fence  across  the 
Kainga,  and  lined  it  thickly  with  fern,  not  as  a  break-wind  or 
shelter,  but,  as  he  told  us,  that  the  one  party  might  not  be  able 
even  to  look  upon  the  other  ?\ 

Such  are  the  gifts  of  Protestant  England  to  her  colonies. 
To  sow  in  all  lands  the  tares  which  the  enemy  has  planted  in 
her  own, — to  present  Christianity  to  the  heathen  as  the  symbol 
of  confusion  and  disorder,  the  fruitful  mother  of  jealousy  and 
hate, — to  strip  the  savage  of  the  new  virtues  which  he  was 
ready  to  assume,  and  revive  the  old  enmities  which  he  was  will- 
ing to  forget ;  such  is  the  terrible  mission  which  she  has  chosen 
•tor  herself.  It  is  her  own  children  who  fling  this  reproach  at 
her ;  it  is  her  own  agents  and  emissaries,  regretting  too  late  their 
fatal  success,  who  cry  to  her  from  every  region  of  the  earth, 
from  every  island  which  the  sea  has  cast  up  to  its  surface,  and 
seem  to  pray  that  her  ships  may  pass  far  from  their  shores,  and 
carry  elsewhere  their  cargo  of  pestilence  and  death.  But  the 
pi-ay  er  comes  too  late;  the  seal  is  opened,  the  plague  let  loose  ; 
t%the  waters  have  become  wormwood,"  and  souls  shall  die 
u  because  the  fountains  of  waters  have  been  made  bitter.":): 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  the  story  of  New  Zealand, 
that  we  may  bring  it  to  an  end.  "  You  Europeans  are  not  even 
agreed  amongst  yourselves,"  said  a  powerful  chief,  "  as  to  what 
is  the  true  religion.  When  you  have  agreed  amongst  yourselves 
which  is  the  right  road,  I  may  perhaps  be  induced  to  take  it.v§ 
Who  will  cast  the  first  stone  at  this  barbarian,  or  convict  him 
of  error  ?  "  Had  there  been  one  uniform  creed  and  priesthood," 
says  Colonel  Mundy,  as  if  determined  to  justify  the  argument  of 
the  savage,  "one  cannot  doubt  that  the  success  of  the  Christian 

*  Parliamentary  Papers,  vol.  xxx.,  p.  153  (1846). 
Quoted  in  Mr.  Brown's  New  Zealand,  app.,  p.  261. 
Apoc.  viii.  11. 
New  Zealand,  by  William  Swainson,  H.  M.  Attorney-general,  p.  36  (1856). 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   ANTIPODES.  453 

missions  would  have  been  incalculably  greater — perhaps  literally 
catholic,  universal,  throughout  the  native  population  of  these 
islands.  The  observant  Maori  cannot  be  blind  to  such  open 
and  wide  schism,  nor  deaf  to  the  virulence  of  sectarian  ani- 
mosity." He  is,  in  truth,  neither  blind  nor  deaf.  If  this  be 
your  boasted  religion,  he  says,  and  these  its  fruits,  we  are  better 
without  it.  Even  pagans  can  judge  such  a  mockery  of  Chris- 
tianity. "They  say,  and  they  are  right  in  saying  it,"  exclaims 
a  Protestant  missionary,  as  if  some  strong  spirit  forced  the 
avowal,  from  him,  "  that  heathenism  with  love  is  better  than 
Christianity  without  it."* 

We  have  still  to  speak  of  the  efforts  of  an  individual  whom, 
for  several  reasons,  it  was  inexpedient  to  compare  with  his  com- 
panions. It  would  be  indecent  to  confound  the  respected  name 
of  Dr.  Selwyn  with  that  of  his  predecessors  and  colleagues. 
Most  Englishmen  are  familiar  with  his  honorable  career. 
Distinguished  even  in  youth  by  the  manly  energy  of  character 
which  made  him  pre-eminent  amongst  all  rivals  both  at  school 
and  college ;  exhibiting  all  the  qualities  which  compose  the 
highest  type  of  excellence  recognized  by  his  countrymen  and 
co-religionists  ;  Dr.  Selwyn  had  only  to  make  his  own  choice 
amongst  the  various  dignities  which  popular  sympathy  awards 
to  its  favorites.  In  the  army,  he  would  have  risen  to  high 
command;  the  bar  would  have  admitted  him  among  its  leaders: 
having  selected  the  ecclesiastical  profession,  he  naturally  became 
a  bishop.  Anglicanism  could  not  desire  a  better  representative. 
Let  us  follow  Dr.  Selwyn  to  New  Zealand,  and  see  what  his 
talents  and  virtues  have  enabled  him  to  effect,  after  many  years 
of  labor,  as  the  acknowledged  head,  both  by  character  and 
position,  of  Protestant  missions  in  that  colony. 

We  have  seen  already  that,  like  Heber  and  Middletori  in 
India,  he  contents  himself  with  recording  as  an  unwelcome 
fact  those  implacable  religious  divisions  which  Anglicanism 
everywhere  generates,  but  for  which  he  does  not  even  affect  to 
suggest  a  remedy,  and  which  others  declare  are  mainly  due  to 
his  own  influence.  "He  has  not  rested  satisfied,"  says  a  member 
of  the  New  Zealand  Legislative  Council  whom  we  have  already 
quoted,  "with  promulgating  the  doctrines  of  Christianity,  but 
has  waged  war  on  his  fellow-laborers,  by  denouncing  their 
teachings  as  unsound."  Dr.  Selwyn  had  perhaps  good  reason 
for  denouncing  his  various  rivals  in  New  Zealand,  and  for 
warning  the  natives  against  their  version  of  Christianity  ;  but 
as  the  Episcopalians  and  Wesleyans  had  co-operated  together  as 
one  body  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  his  arrival 

*  Mr.  Turton,  quoted  in  Brown's  app.,  p.  268. 


454:  CHAPTER  V. 

amongst  them,  had  always  recognized  each  other  as  fellow- 
ministers  before  the  heathen,  and  had  even  been  accustomed, 
we  are  told,  during  all  that  period,  uto  partake  of  the  sacra- 
ment" together  indifferently, — his  admonition  naturally  pro- 
voked two  comments ;  the  lirst,  that  it  came  too  late ;  and  the 
second,  that  it  was  a  far  more  severe  condemnation  of  his  own 
Church,  and  of  her  capricious  inconsistency,  than  of  the  Wes- 
leyan  teachers,  who  at  least  had  the  advantage  of  being  always 
of  one  mind.  We  shall  presently  hear  both  these  arguments 
urged  with  great  force,  and  apparently  with  triumphant  effect. 
That  Dr.  Selwyn  has  not  succeeded, 'in  spite  of  his  eminent 
natural  gifts,  in  changing  the  character  of  the  New  Zealand ers, 
any  more  than  Martyn  succeeded  in  India  or  Tomlin  in  China, 
is  sufficiently  proved  by  what  we  have  already  heard,  as  well 
as  by  his  own  admissions.  "  Bishop  Selwyn  complains,"  we 
are  told  by  Mr.  Fox,  who  refers  to  his  own  words,  "  that  the 
missionaries  can  obtain  no  hold  on  the  minds  of  the  natives, 
owing  to  the  loss  of  influence  of  the  chiefs.  They  are,  he  says, 
c  a  rope  of  sand  ;  the  young  men  escape  from  all  control.'  "* 
Even  his  own  "converts"  appear  obstinately  indifferent  to  the 
peculiar  tenets  which  he  has  endeavored  to  recommend  to 
them,  and  especially  to  the  most  elementary  notions  of  what  he 
would  call  u  Church  principles."  Thus  Dr.  Selwyn,  after  re- 
lating that  on  a  certain  occasion  a  native  chief  insisted  upon 
reading  the  prayers,  while  he  himself  preached  the  sermon, 
goes  on  thus  :  u  This,  you  will  say,  was  an  unusual  combination  : 
a  New  Zealand  war-chief  reading  prayers,  and  an  English  bishop 
preaching ;  but  you  must  not  at  present  judge  us  by  the  ordi- 
nary rules  of  Church  discipline."f  Most  people  will  be  so  little 
disposed  to  judge  this  occurrence  harshly,  that  they  will  see  in 
the  concession  made  to  the  headstrong  chief  only  a  proof  of 
Dr.  Selwyn's  good  sense ;  but  we  may  fairly  observe  that  while 
Catholic  missionaries  have  no  difficulty  in  fixing  deep  in  the 
hearts  of  their  converts,  however  rude  and  uncivilized,  all  the 
stupendous  mysteries  of  the  apostolic  doctrine,  Anglicans 
cannot  so  much  as  induce  their  own  countrymen,  much  less 
the  heathen  tribes,  to  observe  even  the  formal  decencies  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline.  The  "war-chief"  probably  thought 
himself  quite  as  capable  a  minister  of  tsu-ch  a  religion,  which 
consists  only  in  the  utterance  of  words,  as  his  episcopal 
colleague,  and  Dr.  Selwyn  had  no  alternative  but  to.  com  ply 
with  his  humor.  No  such  anecdote,  however,  will  be  found 

*  The  Six  Colonies,  p.  59. 

f  C/iurch  in  the  Colonies,  No.  vii.,  p.  8.  Dr.  Selwyn's  colleague  in  Columbia 
is  described  as  holding  "  a  missionary  service,  and  a  native  girl  interpreting  !" 
Report  of  8.  P.  G.  f\  P.,  p.  90  (1862). 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  455 

in  the  annals  of  Catholic  missions;  and  the  Catholic  convert  of 
to-day,  though  yesterday  but  a  pagan  savage,  has  already  been 
taught  by  God,  both  that  religion  has  its  sanctuaries,  and  that 
he  may  not  dare  to  intrude  into  them. 

As  we  are  now  speaking  of  Dr.  Selwyn,  not  in  the  character 
which  his  many  friends  justly  admire,  but  in  that  of  an  apos- 
tolic missionary, — for  this  is  his  profession, — we  are  obliged  to 
notice  the  following  characteristic  fact.  He  is  on  a  journey, 
not  more  arduous  than  common  men  undertake  every  day  for 
business  or  pleasure,  but  still  a  journey,  and  he  has  left  his 
family  behind.  A  feeling  of  lassitude  comes  over  him,  and  he 
tells  us  from  what  source  he  derived  comfort  and  strength.  "I 
consoled  myself  with  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Selwyn,  giving  an  ex- 
cellent account  of  herself  and  William,  upon  which  I  took 
heart."*  Let  it  be  freely  admitted  that  such  a  sentiment  is 
perfectly  natural  and  becoming  in  the  mouth  of  a  Protestant 
bishop,  even  though  a  u  missionary ;"  but  if  we  would  compre- 
hend all  that  such  language  implies,  let  us  try  to  fancy  St. 
Andrew  or  St.  Bartholomew,  or  even  the  most  obscure  Catholic 
missionary  of  the  nineteenth  century,  gravely  writing,  that 
being  on  an  embassy  from  the  Most  High  God,  he  was  re- 
freshed and  "  took  heart,"  because  he  heard  good  tidings  of  his 
wife  and  family.  In  such  words  is  revealed  the  whole  differ- 
ence between  a  mere  man,  amiable  and  educated,  but  possess- 
ing only  the  natural  virtues ;  and  an  apostle,  tilled  with  Divine 
gifts,  and  deriving  from  his  union  with  God  a  higher  consola- 
tion than  the  purest  domestic  joys  can  ever  yield. 

"  How  shall  we  preach  to  the  world  detachment  and  contempt 
of  earthly  things,"  said  the  great  apostle  of  China,  in  a  treatise 
of  almost  incomparable  eloquence  and  force  addressed  to  the 
Literates  of  that  land,  "  if  we  do  not  contend  against  covetous- 
ness  by  holy  poverty,  and  against  voluptuousness  by  chastity  ? 
We  resign  freely  that  which  is  our  own,  in  order  to  teach  the 
world  not  to  covet  what  belongs  to  another;  and  we  refrain 
even  from  lawful  marriage,  to  admonish  it  against  forbidden 
pleasures.  There  will  never  be  wanting  fathers  of  families,  to 
set  an  example  of  domestic  virtue,  and  yet  many  of  these  are 
more  occupied  in  destroying  religion  than  in  extending  it.  Let 
some  at  least  be  altogether  given  to  the  latter.  We  do  not 
respect  man  for  what  he  has  in  common  with  the  brutes.  To 
aim  at  perfection  is  his  true  calling.  Man  can  more  safely 
dispense  with  bread  than  with  justice,  and  the  world  would  be 
better  without  inhabitants  than  without  religion.  The  import- 
ance of  religion  is,  then,  a  sufficient  motive  with  some  men  to 

*  Church  in  the  Colonies,  No.  viii.,  p.  34. 


456  CHAPTER   V. 

neglect  marriage  ;  but  is  marriage  so  important  that  we  ought 
to  neglect  religion  for  it  ?  Death  itself  should  not  hinder  us 
from  following  the  Divine  will;  why,  then,  should  the  necessity 
of  renouncing  marriage  do  so?  Our  office  is  to  preach  the 
Faith  in  all  the  earth.  If  we  fail  in  the  West,  we  hasten  to 
the  East ;  if  they  refuse  to  hear  us  in  the  South,  we  turn  to 
the  North.  We  are  not  tied  to  one  place  ;  but  marriage  binds 
a  man  and  attaches  him  to  his  family.  Married  persons  may 

quit  each  other  no  more The  members  of  my  Order  are 

ready,  at  a  moment's  warning,  to  carry  the  Faith  to  any  region, 
though  it  were  distant  thousands  of  leagues.  They  have  not  to 
provide  for  a  family.  They  have  God  for  their  father,  all  men 
for  brothers,  and  the  world  for  a  home.  A  virtue  as  high  as 
the  heavens,  as  wide  as  the  oceans,  is  it  not  far  above  mere 

conjugal  tidelity  ? We  do  not  contemn  marriage;  they 

who  marry  sin  not;  but  we  who  are  missionaries  abstain  from 
it,  while  we  readily  admit  that  not  all  who  observe  celibacy 
are  saints."* 

It  is  curious  that,  almost  at  the  same  moment  that  Dr.  Sel- 
wyn  was  "  taking  heart"  in  his  fatigues,  the  Catholic  bishop  of 
New  Zealand,  wThose  character  Protestant  witnesses  will  pres- 
ently expound  to  us,  was  writing  home  to  his  aged  mother  in 
France,  not  to  complain  of  his  solitude,  or  of  all  that  he  had 
left  in  Europe,  but  to  ask  her  prayers, — the  prayers  of  his  own 
mother, — that  God  would  grant  him  the  grace  of  martyrdom, 
and  let  him  finish  his  apostolic  career  by  shedding  his  blood 
for  his  Master. 

It  remains  only  to  allude  to  Dr.  Selwyn's  attempts  to  intro- 
duce u  high-church  principles"  in  New  Zealand,  and  the  results 
to  which  they  have  led.  He  is  the  first  Protestant  missionary 
by  whom  the  experiment  has  been  tried  ;  and  his  own  mode  of 
action,  the  comments  which  it  provoked  in  others,  and  its  final 
results,  are  too  instructive  not  to  merit  special  notice. 

Before  Dr.  Selwyn's  arrival  in  the  colony,  the  clergy  of  the 
Established  Church,  occupied  chiefly  in  making  their  fortunes, 
and  caring  as  little  about  u  Church  principles"  as  the  majority 
of  their  brethren  at  home,  were  hardly  to  be  distinguished, 
except  by  their  superior  wealth,  from  Wesleyans,  Independents, 
or  Presbyterians.  The  different  sects  dwelt  together  in  harmony, 
and  were  too  keenly  absorbed  by  more  pressing  interests  to 
quarrel  about  their  ecclesiastical  distinctions.  Dr.  Selwyn  was 
of  another  class  ;  he  had  not  come  to  New  Zealand  to  make 
money,  and  he  had  a  strong  opinion  about  the  "priesthood"  and 
the  a  sacraments,"  or  at  least  about  two  of  them.  He  bade  his 

*  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  xxv. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  457 

clergy  tell  the  natives,  for  the  first  time,  that  the  "Weslejans 
were  unauthorized  agents,  without  orders  or  mission.  Then  arose 
that  furious  strife  of  sects  which  has  made  New  Zealand  a  battle- 
field from  one  end  to  the  other,  and  of  which  the  effects  have 
been  described  to  us  by  Dr.  Selwyn  himself.  But  the  Wesley  ans 
were  not  disposed  to  retire  from  a  field  which  they  had  occupied 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century ;  they  accepted  Dr.  Selwyn's  chal- 
lenge, and  they  replied  to  his  arguments  after  this  manner. 

"  For  more  than  twenty  years,"  said  Mr.  Turton,  who  repre- 
sented the  Wesleyan  body,  and  who  conducted  the  official  cor- 
respondence with  their  new  and  unexpected  adversary,  "  your 
clergy  have  invariably  co-operated  with  us.  Either  they  were 
wrong  then,  or  you  are  wrong  now,  unless  the  Church  of  England 
has  the  privilege  of  changing  its  principles  every  twenty  years." 
The  argument  was  forcible,  and  hardly  admitted  of  reply  ;  but 
Mr.  Turton  then  proceeded  to  discuss  the  probable  effects  of  the 
new  "  Church  principles"  upon  the  natives.  "  They  are  shrewd 
men,"  he  observed  to  Dr.  Selwyn,  "  and  will  be  sure  to  ask, 
Why  have  we  not  heard  of  this  schismatical  Church  before? 
Is  this  a  new  Church  of  England  that  has  lately  sprung  up  ? 
And  what  has  this  new  bishop  been  doing  for  the  last  twenty 
years,  that  he  could  not  hasten  hither  before  now  to  warn  us  of 
our  danger?"  Mr.  Turton  seems  to  have  felt  that  he  had  a 
strong  case,  and  was  determined  to  make  the  most  of  it,  so  he 
went  on  thus:  "Your  lordship  has  placed  the  Church  mission, 
and  her  past  operations  amongst  the  New  Zealanders,  in  a  most 
awkward  position.  She  must  either  acknowledge  herself  to 
have  been  egregiously  wrong  in  holding  the  least  sympathy 
with  '  schismatics,'  or  she  must  defend  the  course  which  she 
has  taken  for  the  last  twenty  years  in  the  exercise  of  4  brotherly 
love'  towards  the  Wesleyans.'** 

Dr.  Selwyn  was  far  too  intelligent  not  to  feel  the  "  awkward 
position"  quite  as  keenly  as  his  Wesleyan  correspondent,  and 
appears  to  have  sought  escape  from  it  in  this  way  :  In  public 
he  continued  to  condemn  the  Wesley  ans,  while  in  private  he 
did  just  what  his  clergy  had  done  "for  the  last  twenty  years." 
Familiar  as  we  are  with  the  Church  of  England,  and  with  her 
constant  betrayal  even  of  the  truths  which  she  professes  to 
uphold,  it  is  difficult  to  realize  that  such  words  as  the  following 
were  written  by  Dr.  Selwyn :  "  The  Wesleyan  missionaries 
received  me  in  a  most  friendly  and  hospitable  manner,  and  all 
our  differences  of  system  seemed  to  be  forgotten  in  the  one  ab- 
sorbing interest  of  the  work  in  which  we  were  all  engaged  for 
the  conversion  of  the  heathen It  was  of  little  eonse- 

*  In  Brown's  appendix,  p.  259. 


4:58  CHAPTER   V. 

quence  whether  these  babes  in  Christ  were  nourished  by  their 
own  true  mother" — meaning,  apparently,  the  Establishment  in 
England  and  Ireland — "or  by  other  faith  fid  nurses,  provided 
that  they  were  fed  only  with  the  sincere  milk  of  the  Word."* 

Elsewhere  he  says,  "  I  went  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Watkins, 
Wesleyan  missionary,  by  whom  I  was  hospitably  entertained. 
In  the  evening  I  catechized  his  natives."f  But  this  assertor 
of  "Church  principles"  could  discern  and  acknowledge  "faith- 
ful nurses"  anywhere.  "  I  may  confess,"  he  says,  writing  from 
another  place,  "  the  pleasure  which  I  felt  in  kneeling  down  to 
family  prayers  in  the  house  of  the  resident  missionary,  a  min- 
ister, I  believe,  of  the  Independent  persuasion, ,"J 

These  are  not  the  only  passages  of  the  same  kind  in  Dr. 
Selwyn's  letters,  but  we  need  not  add  to  them.  The  Wesleyans 
and  Independents  were  probably  satisfied  that  such  an  adversary 
was  not  likely  to  do  them  much  injury,  and  that  "  Church 
principles"  were  far  more  harmless  than  they  had  supposed. 
What  Dr.  Selwyn's  explanation  of  these  contradictions  may  be 
we  do  not  stay  to  inquire.  He  has  only  done  what  Heber  and 
others  did  before  him,  and  many  more  will  do  after  him  ;  but 
he  has  added  one  more  proof  to  the  thousands  which  already 
existed  of  the  real  character  of  the  Anglican  Church,  and  has 
shown  that  she  only  differs  from  the  various  sects  which  have 
sprung  from  her  in  this — that  while  they  form  each  a  separate 
community  in  order  to  enjoy  the  exclusive  profession  of  a 
particular  heresy,  she,  in  the  person  of  her  bishops,  professes 
them  all  at  once,  and  has  therefore  a  right  to  be  astonished  that 
they  should  have  thought  it  necessary  to  leave  a  communion, 
possessing  ample  revenues,  in  which  they  might  have  held  any 
opinions  whatever,  without  the  superfluous  cost  of  endowing  a 
new  race  of  ministers  to  teach  them.  She  has  had  "  bishops," 
like  Cranmer  and  Hooper,  who  denied  the  episcopate ;  she  has 
"priests"  like  nine-tenths  of  her  present  clergy,  who  deny  the 
priesthood;  and  she  is  so  tolerant  of  the  privileges  of  error, 
that,  after  preaching,  like  Dr.  Selwyn,  against  the  enormity  of 
schism,  she  always  finishes,  like  him,  by  "feeling  great  pleas- 
ure" in  going  to  prayers  with  schismatics. 

We  can  hardly  be  surprised  to  learn  that  Dr.  Selwyn,  in 
spite  of  his  energy  and  ability,  has  failed,  like  Middleton  and 
Heber,  and  other  equally  conspicuous  Anglican  ministers,  even 
to  correct  the  infirmities  of  his  own  flock.  "  Bishop  Selwyn," 
says  Dr.  Thomson,  "complained  with  deep  emotion  of  his  flock's 
lukewarinness,  and  they  whispered,  in  extenuation  of  their 

*  The  Melanesian  Mission,  Letter  i.,  p.  17. 
f  Church  in  the  Colonies,  No.  viii.,  p.  17. 
if  The  Mdanesian  Mission,  p.  25. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  459 

conduct,  that  they  objected  to  exclusive  clerical  rule  in  Church, 
management.  The  members  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in 
New  'Zealand,  although  strong  advocates  of  political  freedom, 
bowed  to  the  authority  of  a  priesthood  they  revered,  and  with 
whom  they  regarded  it  wrong  to  dispute."  Dr.  Selwyn,  like 
his  brethren  at  home,  was  less  successful  in  appealing  to  the 
docility  of  his  followers.  "The  English  Church  did  not 
flourish,  and  the  reason  was  obvious.  At  home  it  is  supported 
by  endowments  and  dignities  which  enable  the  clergy  to  rule, 
and  make  them  leaders  rather  than  servants  of  the  laity ;  in 
New  Zealand  there  are  few  dignities  and  endowments;  and, 
as  the  lay  members  have  no  faith  in  the  infallibility  of  their 
priesthood,  they  wished  to  have  some  share  in  the  management 
of  a  Church  they  as  yet  chiefly  supported."* 

Dr.  Selwyn  had  recourse  to  the  only  measures  available  to 
a  Protestant  bishop.  "The  bishop,  perceiving  this  feeling, 
purchased  and  procured  grants  of  land  in  the  colony  for  endow- 
ments." We  have  seen  that,  in  his  own  words,  it  sometimes 
"rained  bank-notes."  Arid  then  he  tried  another  scheme. 
"  He  visited  England  to  obtain  from  Her  Majesty  a  government 
for  the  Church  in  New  Zealand."  If  money  and  the  aid  of 
the  State  could  not  remedy  the  "  lukewarmness"  of  his  flock, 
the  case  was  hopeless.  "  But  the  Secretary  of  State  informed 
him  that  the  settlers  had  now  the  law  in  their  own  hands,  and 
that  a  Church  constitution,  it'  necessary,  must  originate  with 
the  colonial  parliament."  And  then  he  went  back  and  sum- 
moned, in  1857,  "  a  convention  of  the  English  Church  at 
Auckland  for  the  purpose  of  settling  what  should  be  done." 
Dr.  Thomson  adds,  "  No  interest  was  taken  in  its  proceedings 
by  the  public ;"  and  even  in  the  "  Canterbury  settlement," 
destined  to  be  exclusively  Anglican,  the  same  undiscerning 
"  public,"  as  we  shall  hear  immediately,  only  interfered  to 
place  the  Established  Church  on  exactly  the  same  level  as  all 
the  other  sects.  Is  it  wonderful  that  men  who  cannot  even 
conquer  the  lukewarmness  or  hostility  of  their  own  nominal 
flock,  should  fail  to  convert  the  heathen  ? 

But  the  proceedings  of  so  distinguished  a  person  as  Dr. 
Selwyn,  and  the  fortunes  of  "  high  church"  principles  in 
New  Zealand,  deserve  further  notice.  We  have  seen  that  Dr. 
Selwyn  himself  actively  co-operated  in  public,  in  spite  of  his 
theoretical  views,  with  men  whom  he  continued  to  rebuke  in 
private  as  "  schismatics."  He  did  more ;  he  gave  up  the  whole 
contest,  when  he  found  that  he  could  not  prevail,  and  assigned 
his  reasons  for  doing  so.  "  The  keen-sighted  native  convert," 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  264. 


460  CHAPTER   V. 

he  told  the  University  of  Oxford,  "  soon  detects  a  difference  of 
system,  and  thus  religion  brings  disunion  instead  of  harmony 
and  peace."  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  affect  a  unity 
which  did  not  exist,  in  order  to  reassure  "  the  keen-sighted 
native  ;"  and  so,  instead  of  insisting  any  longer  upon  principles 
which,  if  they  were  apostolic  verities,  should  have  been  main- 
tained at  the  risk  of  life  itself,  Dr.  Selwyn  began  to  consort 
with  Wesleyans  and  Independents.  u  Above  all  other  things," 
he  said,  u  it  is  our  duty  to  guard  against  inflicting  upon  them 
the  curses  of  our  disunion,  lest  wre  make  every  little  island  in 
the  ocean  a  counterpart  of  our  own  divided  and  contentious 
Church."  The  Wesleyans,  therefore,  were  glad  to  claim  Dr. 
Selwyn,  as  they  had  claimed  all  his  predecessors,  as  a  witness 
to  their  value  as  "  faithful  nurses  ;"  and  one  of  their  number 
was  able  to  appeal  to  a  still  more  consoling  fact  in  the  following 
words:  "The  venerable  and  truly  Christian  Bishop  of  Mel- 
bourne has  publicly  stated,  that  in  that  form  of  Christianity 
designated  Wesleyan  Methodism,  there  is  a  peculiar  adaptation 
to  the  population  of  this  very  remarkable  island  continent."* 
Dr.  Selwyn  had  only  admitted  them  to  be  as  good  as  himself; 
another  Anglican  bishop  "  publicly  stated"  that  they  were 
much  better. 

The  assertors  of  "  Church  principles"  in  England,  in  spite  of 
the  zeal  and  ability  of  many  among  them,  have  not  been 
successful ;  in  the  colonies  and  before  the  heathen  they  have 
been,  if  possible,  still  more  unfortunate.  In  ISTew  Zealand  they 
established  the  Canterbury  settlement,  with  the  avowed  purpose 
of  displaying  to  the  world  the  power  and  efficacy  of  those  prin- 
ciples. Mr.  Oholmondeley  relates  in  1854,  and  Mr.  Fuller  in 
1859,  the  actual  result  of  their  operations.  If  Dr.  Selwyn 
deplored  the  "lukewarmness"  of  his  followers,  the  gentlemen  at 
Canterbury  had  still  less  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  the  docility 
of  theirs.  Even  their  "  land  fund,"  from  which,  as  we  have 
heard,  they  anticipated  so  much  wealth,  has  been  forcibly 
diverted,  by  their  own  co-religionists,  to  the  support  of  u  schis- 
matics." "  The  colonists  altered  the  previous  rule,"  says  Mr. 
Fuller,  which  gave  "  the  third  part  of  their  land  fund  for  the 
separate  service  of  the  Church  of  England,"  and  peremptorily 
decided  that  "the  funds  voted  for  educational  purposes"  should 
henceforth  be  distributed,  not  by  a  favored  sect,  but  "through 
the  ministers  of  different  religious  bodies,"t  which  was  prob- 
ably much  less  agreeable  to  the  promoters  of  the  Canterbury 
settlement.  And  this  mortifying  result  was  accompanied  by 

*  Rev.  R.  Young,  The  Southern  World,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  402. 
f  Five  Years'  Residence  in  New  Zealand,  by  Francis  Fuller,  Esq.,  cli.  i., 
pp.  17,  21  (1859). 


MISSIONS    IN   THE    ANTIPODES.  4:61 

another,  of  which  indeed  it  was  the  direct  correlative — the 
growth  of  a  population  which  repudiated  more  and  more  ener- 
getically the  religious  tenets  of  their  founders,  "  the  mass  of 
the  people  at  large,"  as  Mr.  Fuller  observes,  "  being  decidedly 
of  what  are  termed  Low  Church  views." 

uFrom  the  first,"  says  Mr.  Hodgkinson,  speaking  of  the  same 
province,  "the  majority  of  the  members  of  $he  Church  of  Eng- 
land have  opposed  all  Tractarian  doctrines  and  ceremonies.''* 
Mr.  Cholmondeley,  though  apparently  one  of  their  advocates, 
goes  much  further  in  describing  their  failure.  "The  Maoris, 
as  such,"  he  says,  "  are  disappearing ;  and  the  young  people 
look  mean,  squalid,  and  sickly,  and  the  children  miserable  in 
the  extreme."  Of  the  colonists  he  speaks  as  follows:  "The 
truth  at  present  is,  that  there  is  n<>  religious  character  in  the 
British  colonies ;  and  those  are  especially  indifferent  who  in  the 
old  country  belonged  to  the  Church  of  England."  Of  Canter- 
bury he  says,  u  Often  when  in  church  at  Lyttletori  or  Christ- 
church,  I  have  been  struck  with  the  English  character  of  the 
attendance  at  .Divine  worship  ;  1  mean,  the  pretence  and  hy- 
pocrisy of  the  whole  thing."  And  then  he  adds,  u  Let  our 
Church  remain  in  her  present  unformed  condition,  and  the 
sons  of  her  people  will  become  either  Roman  Catholics,  or 
Atheists  and  Materialists."*)- 

Eight  years  after  Mr.  Cholmondeley  ventured  upon  this  pre- 
diction, its  reasonableness  was  once  more  admitted  by  an  Eng- 
lish Protestant  of  another  school,  who  candidly  exposes  the 
contrast  to  which  the  former  only  alluded.  The  Catholics,  Mr. 
Edwin  Hodder  observes,  in  1862,  willingly  travel  several  miles 
every  Sunday  to  assist  at  the  offices  of  religion.  "  The  regu- 
larity and  patience  with  which  these  weekly  pilgrimages  were 
performed  was  most  exemplary,  as  well  as  the  indefatigable  ex- 
ertions of  the  priests,  who  paid  weekly  visits  to  every  family 
under  their  charge."  On  the  other  hand,  he  gives  this  account 
of  the  members  of  the  Church  of  England,  whom  Mr.  Cholmon- 
deley had  judged  so  unfavorably  at  an  earlier  date:  u  There 
are  hundreds  who  never  enter  a  church  or  chapel  from  one  year's 
end  to  another,  never  show  the  slightest  regard  to  religion  or 
its  observances  in  any  form,  yet  call  themselves  churchmen. 
In  the  census-papers  these  Nothingarians  are  called  church- 
men,"^: a  mode  of  reckoning  which  gires  to  the  Anglican 
establishment  in  the  Antipodes  the  fictitious  majority  which  it 
secures  by  the  same  arithmetical  process  in  England. 

*  A  Description  of  the  Province  of  Canterbury,  by  S.  Hodgkinson,  M.R.C.S., 
p.  15  (1858). 

f  Ultima  Thule,  by  Thomas  Cholmondeley,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  196  ;  ch.  xviii  ,pp.  271, 
281  (1854). 

\  Memories  of  New  Zealand  Life,  pp.  102,  105. 


462  CHAPTER   V. 

We  have  only  one  more  remark  to  make  on  Dr.  Selwyn  and 
his  missionary  career,  of  which,  as  his  own  friends  relate,  these 
are  the  deplorable  results.  He  is  willing,  we  have  seen,  to 
hold  close  communion  with  the  very  men  whom  he  calls,  in 
technical  and  professional  language,  fautors  of  heresy  and 
schism,  and  even  to  acknowledge  them  as  "faithful  nurses  "  of 
the  heathen;  but  he  has  evidently  no  such  spirit  of  forbearance 
towards  the  servants  of  the  Catholic  Church.  For  them  he  has 
only  bold  words  of  anger.  Hear  what  he  says.  In  one  of  his 
journeys  he  comes  to  a  Catholic  mission,  so  lie  takes  his  pen, 
and  writes  quickly,  "  One  of  those  Hots  upon  the  mission  sys- 
tem— a  Romanist  station"*  Whether  these  words  represent 
his  own  sentiments,  or  were  only  a  concession  to  the  prejudices 
of  friends  and  supporters  at  home,  we  cannot  tell.  In  either 
case  they  are  disappointing.  It  is  sad  to  hear  from  Dr.  Selwyn 
language  which  even  many  of  the  least  distinguished  members 
of  his  sect  would  blush  to  use,  and  which  are  equally  repug- 
nant to  truth,  piety,  and  good  taste. 

And  now  we  have  only  to  add  a  brief  account,  or  rather  to 
quote  that  which  has  already  been  published  by  Protestant 
witnesses,  of  the  character  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  in  New 
Zealand,  and  the  results  of  their  labors.  We  have  no  need  of 
partial  evidence  on  either  of  these  points,  for  they  are  avowed 
enemies  whom  Providence  has  employed,  without  their  knowl- 
edge or  consent,  to  furnish  ample  testimony  to  both. 

It  is  not  easy  to  conceive  a  more  hopeless  or  impracticable 
project,  as  far  as  human  means  were  concerned,  than  that  which 
was  attempted  by  the  first  Catholic  missionaries  in  New  Zea- 
land. Every  thing  was  against  them,  except  the  Power  in  which 
alone  they  trusted.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
the  only  form  of  Christianity  with  which  the  natives  were  ac- 
quainted, and  which  was  recommended  to  then  by  the  irresisti- 
ble authority  of  their  masters  and  rulers,  was  one  of  which  the 
very  existence  is  a  protest  against  the  Catholic  faith.  And  lest 
this  should  not  suffice  to  prejudice  them  against  the  new- 
comers, no  effort  had  been  neglected  by  their  powerful  and 
wealthy  patrons  to  kindle  betimes  a  feeling  of  bitter  animosity 
towards  them.  With  unscrupulous  fraud  they  had  been  repre- 
sented as  the  agents  of  a. foreign  State,  whose  secret  object  was 
to  seize  the  islands  and  kill  or  enslave  their  inhabitants.  The 
natives  were  told,  as  Mr.  Wakeiield  informs  us,  that  if  the 
Catholics  were  once  admitted,  they  would  cut  their  throats  or 
drive  them  out  of  their  land.  In  a  memorial  which  they  were 
persuaded,  no  doubt  by  the  missionaries,  to  address  to  Wil- 

*  The  Melanesian  Mission ,  p.  19. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   ANTIPODES.  463 

liam  IV.,  they  said,  "  We  have  heard  that  the  tribe  of  ^Marian 
is  at  hand,  coming  to  take  away  our  land;"*  and  they  pray  His 
Majesty  to  protect  them  against  these  formidable  pirates! 
And  when  at  length  they  arrived,  a  few  defenceless  foreigners, 
scowled  upon  by  the  government,  and  by  every  authority 
whom  the  natives  were  accustomed  to  fear ;  bringing  neither 
money  nor  goods,  and  introducing  a  doctrine  which  was  hateful 
to  the  ruling  class,  and  which  began  by  forbidding  covetousness, 
lying,  and  impurity  to  their  subjects;  is  it  wonderful  that,  as 
Mr.  Bright  mildly  observes,  "  they  were  not  much  inclined"  to 
them?  "In  their  eyes,"  the  same  writer  adds,  "much  trade 
gives  respectability  of  character;"  and  the  first  announcement 
of  the  Catholic  missionaries  was,  that  they  would  not  trade  at 
all,  and  had  nothing  to  trade  with.  It  was  impossible  to  invite 
more  persuasively  the  contempt  of  the  natives,  or  to  convince 
them  more  effectually  that  they  had  nothing  to  gain,  and  every 
thing  to  lose,  by  mortally  offending  their  masters  and  employers 
in  order  to  propitiate  auxiliaries  so  helpless  and  destitute  as 
these.  The  conclusion  was  obvious,  and  the  natives  could  not 
fail  to  adopt  it. 

Yet  the  Catholic  missionaries,  in  spite  of  their  weakness  and 
poverty,  had  one  thing  in  their  favor.  It  is  the  nature  of  man, 
whether  savage  or  civilized,  to  reverence  purity  and  disin- 
terestedness. He  may  be  unwilling  to  imitate,  but  he  cannot 
refuse  to  admire  them.  This  is  the  secret  of  the  triumphs  of 
Catholic  missionaries  throughout  the  world.  Like  the  first 
Apostles,  they  win  their  way  by  wisdom,  holiness,  and  charity. 
Their  virtues  have  first  disarmed  the  hand  which  was  uplifted 
to  strike  them,  and  then  extorted  respect  for  a  religion  of 
which  they  were  the  truth  and  evidence.  And  so  in  New 
Zealand,  as  early  as  1842,  we  learn  from  Dr.  Dieffenbach  the 
significant  fact,  that  in  one  of  the  most  populous  provinces, 
"the  number  of  converts  to  each  creed  is  about  equal,  although 
the  Roman  Catholic  mission  was  established  so  much  later  than 
that  of  the  Church  of  England. "f  But  we  must  not  anticipate 
this  surprising  result  until  we  have  first  shown  by  what  manner 
of  men,  and  in  spite  of  what  complicated  difficulties,  it  was 
accomplished. 

We  have  seen  that  the  natives  had  been  induced  by  their 
Protestant  teachers  to  regard  the  Catholic  missionaries,  even 

*  The  New  Zealand  Question,  by  L.  A.  Chamerovzow,  ch.  iii.,  p.  69.  Cf. 
Colonial  Constitutions,  by  Arthur  Mills,  Esq.,  p.  331 ;  who  relates  that  "  thirty- 
five  chiefs  subscribed  a  declaration,  constituting  themselves  into  an  Independ- 
ent State  "—expressly  to  resist  the  anticipated  attack  of  the  French,  whom 
they  had  been  told  to  expect ! 

f  Travels,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  407. 


464:  CHAPTER    V. 

before  their  arrival,  as  men  of  blood,  conspirators,  and  male- 
factors. The  same  unpleasant  view  of  their  character  was  still 
more  diligently  enforced  upon  them  after  they  had  com- 
menced their  apparently  hopeless  task.  "The  Protestant 
native,"  says  Dr.  Dieffenbach,  "regard  their  Roman  Catholic 
brethren  as  belonging  to  the  devils."  Their  masters,  who  could 
teach  them  nothing  else,  could  teacli  them  this ;  and  it  was 
natural  they  should  attempt  to  do  so,  when  even  a  missionary 
describes  them  thus,  in  1853,  not  to  a  native,  but  to  an  English 
audience:  "Satan  had  taken  care,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Strachan, 
"  to  strengthen  all  his  natural  defences  by  a  fresh  importation 
of  auxiliaries  from  France."*  The  Catholic  missionaries,  ac- 
cording to  this  gentleman,  were  the  agents  of  Satan.  Let  us 
see  what  other  Protestant  witnesses  say  of  the  character  and 
mode  of  life  of  men  whom  an  unsuccessful  rival  could  thus 
describe. 

Dr.  Dieffenbach,  after  noticing  with  evident  repugnance  the 
worldly  and  covetous  habits  of  the  men  towards  whom  his  own 
sympathies  attracted  him,  frankly  confesses,  that,  on  the  other 
hand,  "the  humble  and  disinterested  manner  of  living  of  the 
Catholic  priests,  and  the  superior  education  which  they  have 
generally  received,  have  procured  them  many  friends  both 
amongst  Europeans  and  natives,  and  also  many  converts  amongst 
the  latter."  And  again,  "In  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  missionary  system,  they  are  generally  without 
fixed  places  of  abode,  and  the  bishop,  whose  diocese  extends 
over  several  Archipelagoes  in  the  great  ocean,  is  continually 
travelling  from  place  to  place,  accompanied  by  priests."f  This 
is  certainly  more  like  St.  Paul,  who  was  "in  travels  oft,"  not 
in  a  commodious  yacht,;}:  but  in  the  first  vessel  which  came  to 
hand  ;  and  Dr.  Dieifenbach,  who  has  told  us  how  the  Protestant 
missionaries  preferred  to  reside  in  the  Bay  of  Islands,  rather 
than  "go  into  the  interior,"  seems,  in  spite  of  himself,  to  recur 
again  and  again  to  the  unwelcome  contrast.  But  he  is  not  the 
only  Protestant  writer  who  indulges  in  such  reflections.  Mr. 
Augustus  Earle,  who  gives  a  still  more  unfavorable  account  of 
the  Protestant  missionaries,  cannot  refrain  from  instituting  a 
similar  comparison.  "I  have  visited  many  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  missionary  establishments,"  he  says,  "  and  their 
priests  adopt  quite  a  different  line  of  conduct ;  they  are  cheer- 

*  Life  of  the  Rev.  8.  Leigh,  by  the  Rev.  A.  Straclian,  cli.  xv...  p.  439  (1853). 

f  Travels,  ch.  ix.,  pp.  163,  169. 

\  An  Anglican  clergyman,  who  had  dwelt  in  the  Antipodes,  and  appears  to 
have  been  an  impartial  observer,  speaks  of  the  pleasant  trips  of  a  certain 
episcopal  tourist  as  "  a  yachting  cruise  among  the  Polynesian  seas."  Berkeley 
Jones,  Adventures  in  Australia,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  225. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   ANTIPODES.  465 

ful  and  kind  to  the  savage  pagan,  polite  and  attentive  to  their 
European  brethren  ;  they  have  gained  the  esteem  of  those  they 
have  been  sent  to  convert,  and  nowever  we  may  differ  in  some 
tenets  of  religious  belief,  we  must  acknowledge  the  success  of 
their  missions."* 

It  appears  that  Mr.  Earle,  like  other  travellers,  had  occasion 
to  deplore  the  churlish  and  inhospitable  behavior  of  his  opu- 
lent co-religionists.  Thus  he  notices,  with  pardonable  disgust, 
that  even  on  a  Christinas  Day  the  missionaries  shut  their  doors 
against  him  and  his  party,  while  travelling  in  the  interior,  and 
that  even  the  savages  spoke  with  contempt  of  their  morose  and 
uncharitable  conduct.  Mr.  Kochfort  also,  at  a  much  later  date, 
makes  the  same  complaint,  and  adds,  "  I  must  say  the  Catholic 
missionaries  are  generally  the  more  hospitable  of  the  two,"f — 
in  spite  of  the  exiguity  of  their  resources.  Captain  Dillon, 
who  had  many  opportunities  of  judging  both  classes,  uses  still 
more  energetic  language.  After  noticing  the  "  luxurious  style" 
in  which  the  Protestant  missionaries  lived,  and  their  "numerous 
flocks  and  herds,"  he  relates  that  a  sick  and  famishing  English 
crew  vainly  implored  relief  from  these  wealthy  preachers,  who 
left  them  "a  prey  to  disease,  destitute  of  solace,  mental  or 
bodily,  and  gasping  for  a  little  fresh  meat."  At  length  a  lay 
settler  sent  them  a  supply  of  sheep,  fowls,  and  wine,  with  the 
ironical  message,  that  "  seamen  could  not  expect  to  participate 
in  the  good  things  of  this  earth,  which  were  reserved  solely  for 
the  elect."  One  of  the  heathen  also,  pitying  "the  sick  and 
debilitated  state  of  the  crew,"  sent  them  "  five  large  hogs  and 
nearly  a  thousand  pounds  of  potatoes."  "  Contrast,  reader," 
adds  this  honest  navigator,  "  the  generous,  sympathizing,  and 
disinterested  conduct  of  this  heathen  with  the  unfeeling  selfish- 
ness of  the  saintly  preachers  who  undertake  to  convert  him  from 
the  error  of  his  ways !"  And  then,  calling  to  mind  a  land 
which  he  had  lately  visited,  this  Protestant  sailor,  who  was  not 
without  notions  of  Christianity,  compares  "the  conduct  of 
these  enlightened  professors  of  the  reformed  doctrines  with  the 
really  Christian  conduct  of  the  benighted  ministers  of  the 
Catholic  religion  at  Lima.  '  As  soon  as  the  news  reaches  these 
venerable  padres  of  the  arrival  of  a  vessel,  they  repair  on  board, 
and,  with  the  benignity  of  habitual  charity,  inquire  after  the 
health  of  those  on  board."  The  sick,  he  says,  without  distinc- 
tion of  creed  or  country,  are  removed  to  the  convents,  gratui- 
tously tended,  and  finally  dismissed  with  a  blessing  when  they 
no  longer  need  the  charity  of  men  who  "  feel  themselves  amply 

*  Nine  Months'  Residence,  &c.,  p.  171. 

f  Adventures  in  New  Zealand,  by  John  Rochfort,  ch.  in.,  p.  28. 

31 


CHAPTER   V. 

compensated  by  an  approving  conscience."*     But  it  is  time  to 
return  to  the  same  class  of  missionaries  in  the  Antipodes. 

The  writers  on  New  Zealand  have  more  to  tell  us  about  the 
character  of  the  men  whom  Mr.  Strachan  represents,  without 
any  misgiving,  as  the  agents  of  Satan.  The  leader  of  the 
Catholic  mission  was  Bishop  Pompallier,  a  man  beloved  by  all 
who  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  know  him,  but  who,  though 
worthy  to  be  numbered  with  those  apostolic  missionaries  of 
whom  France  has  produced  so  many,  "  was  attacked,"  as  Mr. 
Wakefield  relates,  "  by  both  sects  of  Protestant  missionaries  in 
the  most  intolerant  manner."  One  of  his  own  clergy  observes, 
in  1840,  "Scarcely  had  we  quitted  the  tribe  of  Mototapn 
when  the  Protestant  ministers  came  to  sow  discord  among  its 
members.  One  of  them  made  an  attempt  to  degrade  our  ven- 
erable bishop  by  giving  his  name  to  impure  animals.  All  the 
natives  were  indignant  at  this  conduct."f  It  is  interesting  to 
learn  how  this  French  prelate,  who  might  have  appealed  to  his 
own  great  nation  for  succor,  rebuked  by  "  patient  continuance 
in  well-doing  the  malice  of  evil  men,"  and  finally  won  the 
esteem  and  sympathy  of  all  who  were  capable  of  appreciating  a 
courteous  gentleman  and  a  devout  Christian.  '*  The  gentlemen 
of  the  club,"  says  Mr.  Wakefield,  "  and  others  who  had  enjoyed 
his  acquaintance,  spoke  highly  of  his  urbane  manners,  and  his 
philanthropic  views  with  regard  to  the  natives."  He  was  some- 
thing better  than  a  philanthropist,  who  is  often  only  a  refined 
heathen ;  but  we  must  leave  our  witnesses  to  use  their  own 
terms.  "  Bishop  Pompallier,"  says  one  whose  own  accomplish- 
ments enabled  him  to  admire  higher  qualities  in  others,  "is  a 
man  peculiarly  adapted  for  the  purposes  of  the  mission  of  his 
Church.  By  education  a  scholar,  in  manners  engaging,  in 
countenance  prepossessing  and  expressive,  added  to  sincere  and 
earnest  zeal  in  the  cause  he  has  undertaken,  ...  it  may  easily 
be  imagined  that  he  creates  no  ordinary  sensation  among  the 
Aborigines."^:  "  I  would  not  attempt,"  says  the  Presbyterian 
Dr.  Lang,  "  to  conceal  my  own  serious  apprehension  of  M. 
Pompallier's  success  ;"§  but  he  is  satisfied  with  expressing  his 
alarm,  and  does  not  talk  about  "Satan."  A  Sydney  journal, 
on  the  authority  of  New  Zealand  letters,  observes  at  the  same 
date,  "The  Rev.  Dr.  Pompallier  is  said  to  have  made  great 
progress  in  the  conversion  of  the  natives  of  Hokianga,  where 
the  Wesley  an  mission  is  ...  some  of  the  leading  chiefs  have 

*  Narrative  of  the  Discovery  of  the  Fate  of  La  Perouse,  bj  Captain  P.  Dil 
Ion,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  pp.  321-31. 
•f  Annals,  vol.  iii.,  p.  26. 
j:  Terry,  p.  190. 
§  New  Zealand,  p.  43. 


MISSIONS  IN   THE  ANTIPODES.  467 

promised  his  lordship  to  attend  to  his  new  mode  of  worship."* 
It  was  probably  these  facts  of  which  the  authoress  of  the  Gospel 
in  New  Zealand  spoke,  when  she  said,  "  they  cause  our  mis- 
sionaries much  anxiety." 

Happily  the  motives  of  their  anxiety  became  more  and  more 
urgent  as  time  went  on.  In  1841,  Mr.  Bright  writes  as  follows : 
"  With  those  Maoris  to  whom  the  Yicar  Apostolic  is  known  he 
seems  popular.  He  has  converted  the  oldest  chief  in  the  Bay 
of  Islands,  his  sons  and  people,  although  previously  attendants 
on  the  Church  mission. "f  Perhaps  it  was  such  events  as  this 
which  made  Dr.  Selwyn  describe  a  Catholic  station  as  "  a  blot 
upon  the  mission  system."  But  Mr.  Bright  continues:  "The 
V  icar  Apostolic  says  he  had  not  been  sent  to  trade,  and  that  he 
is  not  a  buyer  of  land."  And  these  were  the  results  of  his  absti- 
nence from  such  questionable  pursuits.  "  When  I  embarked  to 
inspect  a  county  on  the  east  coast,  I  was  surprised  to  meet 
Moka,"  a  chief  from  the  Bay  of  Islands,  "  with  about  thirty  of 
his  people,  men,  women,  and  children  ;  during  the  passage, 
three  times  a  day,  their  discordant  voices  were  raised  together, 
chanting  the  Mass,  or  some  service  of  the  Catholic  faith."  It 
was  not  the  Mass ;  but  that  is  of  no  consequence.  At  Opo-tee-kee 
also  he  meets  the  same  phenomenon :  "  The  very  children  were 
humming  over  some  portions  of  Masses  in  their  play.  Twice  a 
day  the  chapel  was  crowded,  chorusing  together,  although 
perhaps  not  twelve  of  all  of  them  had  ever  seen  the  Yicar  or 
his  cures.";):  So  in  another  district  the  same  writer  tells  us : 
"  The  Yicar  Apostolic  settled  down  amongst  them,  and  before 
he  could  have  attained  their  language  he  made  converts,  of 
whom  most  had  subscribed  to  the  Church  missionaries."  Even 
in  the  Canterbury  settlement,  destined  to  be  the  exclusive 
domain  of  Anglicanism,  Mr.  Rochfort  informs  us  that  "  there 
are  many  Roman  Catholics,  and  their  cathedral  is  the  finest 
building  in  Wellington." 

Mr.  Angas  too,  who  is  unable  to  record  such  facts  with  com- 
posure, is  not  afraid  of  exciting  merriment  in  his  readers  by 
calling  New  Zealanders  "a  community  of  Jesuit  natives." 
"  Many  of  the  Taupo  natives,"  he  says,  "  are  Catholics ;"  and 
then,  unwilling  to  let  their  conversion  speak  for  itself,  he 
suggests  that  it  was  "  with  the  aid  of  beads  and  crosses,"  and 
other  equally  valuable  "  presents,"  that  the  missionary  "  suc- 
ceeded in  making  numerous  proselytes  to  the  faith  of  Rome." 
Yet  Mr.  Angas  knew,  that  however  the  Catholic  missionary 
might  surpass  his  rivals  in  some  respects,  the  power  to  bribe 

*  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxix.,  p.  189,  N.  8. 
f  History  of  New  Zealand,  ch.  vi.,  p.  126. 
}  Ibid.,  p.  121. 


468  CHAPTER  V. 

was  not  one  of  them.  At  Motupoi  also,  "  the  chief  is  a  Roman 
Catholic ;  several  of  his  people  have  also  embraced  Popery, 
and  at  sunset  they  performed  their  vespers  in  front  of  the  chief's 
house."*  This  time  Mr.  Angas  says  nothing  about  presents. 

Again,  at  Kororarika,  the  American  Commodore  Wilkes 
notices  that  the  Catholic  mission  "  was  making  many  converts," 
which  he  also  attributes  to  "  presents,"  though  the  value  of  the 
crosses,  religious  pictures,  and  other  donations  bestowed  on  the 
natives,  after  their  conversion,  rarely  exceeded  the  modest  sum 
of  one  penny.  They  would  hardly  have  deserted  their  Prot- 
estant masters  for  such  a  reward  as  this.  Yet  even  so  intelli- 
gent a  writer  as  Dr.  Thomson  could  seriously  suggest  this  as  the 
true  explanation  of  a  phenomenon  which  lie  notices  in  these 
words :  "It  has  been  observed  that  Roman  Catholic  missionaries 
have  converted  natives  abandoned  by  the  Protestants  as  hope- 
less ;"f  the  secret  of  their  success,  he  suggests,  being  "  gifts," 
which  were  more  likely  to  excite  the  contempt  than  the  cupid- 
ity of  those  to  whom  they  were  proffered. 

Sometimes  the  writers  on  New  Zealand,  inspired  by  a  candor 
which  it  is  impossible  not  to  admire,  venture  even  to  contrast 
the  Catholic  and  Protestant  natives,  and  always  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  former.  Such  statements  almost  exceed  what  we 
might  fairly  expect  even  from  the  most  upright  of  our  enemies. 
In  1854,  a  gentleman  who  made  a  tour  in  New  Zealand  gives 
this  testimony.  He  is  at  Otaki,  amidst  a  Catholic  tribe,  and 
says :  "  The  resident  priest  I  heard  very  well  spoken  of,  and 
certainly  the  state  of  the  mill,  and  every  thing  connected  with 
it,  evidenced  the  influence  of  a  master  mind."  The  next  village 
he  arrives  at  is  a  Protestant  one,  and  he  goes  on  thus  :  "  There 
was  a  very  observable  difference  in  dress  and  personal  cleanli- 
ness between  the  natives  here  assembled  and  those  at  Otaki, 
much  in  favor  of  the  latter.":): 

Such  testimonies  are  scarcely  less  honorable  to  those  who 
offer  them  than  to  the  objects  of  their  generous  praise.  Here 
is  another  and  still  more  striking  example  of  the  noble  candor 
which  sometimes  distinguishes  our  countrymen.  Sir  George 
Grey,  then  Governor  of  New  Zealand,  addressed  to  Earl  Grey, 
in  1851,  a  dispatch  which  contains  the  following  words  :  "The 
Roman  Catholic  schools  in  this  country  are  exceedingly  well 
conducted,  and  not  only  reflect  great  credit  upon  the  Roman 
Catholic  bishop  and  his  clergy,  but  give  them  a  great  claim  to 
any  proper  consideration  which  can  be  shown  to  thern."§ 

*  Savage  Life,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  pp.  118, 121. 
j-  Vol.  i.,  p.  816. 

i  A  Summer's  Excursion  in  N.  Z.,  pp.  157, 165. 
|  Parliamentary  Papers,  vol.  xlv.,  p.  12  (1854). 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  ANTIPODES.  469 

Perhaps  it  was  in  consequence  of  the  encouragement  which 
such  language  afforded,  that  some  of  the  native  females,  taught 
by  Sisters  of  Mercy,  whom  the  charity  of  Christ  had  moved 
to  cross  the  great  ocean,  ventured  to  address  a  letter  to  the 
sovereign  of  Great  Britain,  imploring  aid  for  their  generous 
teachers.  It  was  no  doubt  with  regret  that  succor  was  re- 
fused, and  the  petition  unnoticed. 

It  is  evident,  then,  without  adding  superfluous  evidence,  that 
the  Catholic  missionaries  had  outlived  the  dislike,  and  over- 
come the  opposition  of  their  numerous  and  powerful  enemies. 
Once  more  they  had  accomplished  one  of  those  triumphs  in 
which  there  are  victors  but  no  vanquished.  With  calm  pa- 
tience they  had  pursued  their  way,  aided  only  by  Him  to  whom 
they  had  dedicated  their  lives,  and  esteeming  the  poverty  of 
Jesus  more  than  the  riches  of  the  world.  If  they  had  failed  to 
gain  a  single  convert,  their  very  lives  would  have  sufficed  to 
prove  the  truth  of  their  religion ;  for  they  were  pure  amidst 
corruption,  patient  in  adversity,  charitable  towards  all  men, 
and  especially  towards  those  who  reviled  them,  and  so  irre- 
proachable in  their  humble  and  disinterested  career  that  even 
calumny  was  abashed  in  their  presence,  and  dared  not  sharpen 
its  tongue  against  them.  And  so  when  the  evil  day  arrived,  and 
tribes  which  had  nominally  embraced  the  religion  of  their  rulers 
thirsted  for  their  lives,  and  rose  up  in  fierce  insurrection  against 
them,  the  abode  of  the  Missionaries  of  the  Cross  was  still  a  sacred 
spot ;  and  Colonel  Mundy  relates  that  "  the  missionary  station 
presided  over  by  Bishop  Pompallier  was  the  only  portion  of  the 
town  spared  by  the  invaders."*  It  was  on  the  eve  of  a  conflict, 
in  which  Protestant  natives  fought  against  their  teachers  and 
destroyed  their  lives  and  property,  that  the  captain  of  an  En- 
glish frigate  offered  a  refuge  to  the  Vicar  Apostolic,  and  a  shel- 
ter where  he  might  hide  his  alarm  till  the  danger  was  past. 
The  friendly  offer  was  refused,  in  a  letter  which  announced  his 
intention  to  commit  himself  to  the  guardianship  of  the  savages, 
and  which  disowned  the  apprehension  which  he  was  supposed 
to  feel  in  the  apostolic  words — "  I  fear  nothing  but  sin." 

Finally,  if  we  ask  for  the  numerical  result  of  labors  begun 
at  so  fearful  a  disadvantage,  and  continued  under  every  trial 
and  difficulty  which  could  beset  missionary  efforts, — so  that 
success  might  well  seem  impossible  in  a  battle  where  all  human 
means  of  attaining  it  were  on  one  side,  and  none  on  the  other, 
— one  of  the  latest  writers  on  New  Zealand  has  furnished  this 
surprising  statement.  In  1845,  the  Catholics  were  already 
estimated  by  Mr.  Clarkson  as  one-twentieth  of  the  population, 

*  Australasian  Colonies,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  179. 


470  CHAPTER  V. 

while  the  Wesleyans,  who  had  been  thirty  years  in  the  field 
and  had  spent  vast  sums  of  money,  were  one-seventh  ;  but  in 
1854,  the  Wesleyans,  opposed  at  all  points  by  the  Episcopalians 
with  their  enormous  wealth  and  official  patronage,  had  dwindled 
to  one-eleventh,  and  the  Catholics,  against  whom  all  had  com- 
bined in  a  common  hostility,  had  steadily  advanced  till  they 
had  become  one-seventh  of  the  whole  population.* 

It  appears,  however,  that  even  this  statement  underrates  the 
fact ;  for  while  the  Catholic  missionaries  represent  their  fol- 
lowers, good  and  bad,  as  amounting  to  about  twenty-thousand, 
we  have  seen,  by  a  recent  official  statement,  that  the  whole 
number  of  natives  now  remaining  is  only  fifty-six  thousand 
and  forty-nine,  of  whom  thirty-six  per  cent,  are  avowed  pagans. 
The  proportions  are  probably  destined  to  be  further  affected 
by  the  war  now  raging  (1861)  in  this  ill-fated  colony,  and 
which  will,  perhaps,  only  terminate  when  all  the  pagan  and 
Protestant  natives  have  been  exterminated.  In  1862,  Mr. 
Hodder  reckons  the  surviving  aborigines  not  to  exceed  thirty 
thousand  !f  It  is  surely  a  suitable  conclusion  of  the  history 
of  Anglicanism  in  New  Zealand,  that,  fifty  years  after  it 
began,  the  natives  are  found  once  more  in  arms  against 
teachers  whose  influence,  in  spite  of  their  wealth  and  the  use 
which  they  make  of  it,  has  only  become  more  feeble  year 
by  year,  till  at  length  it  appears  to  be  utterly  extinguished. 
"  Despite  the  remonstrances  of  the  Bishop  of  ISTew  Zealand,  of 
the  most  influential  clergy,  and  of  those  chiefs  who  still  remain 
loyal,  the  flag  of  the  self-styled  King  of  the  Maoris  has  been 
publicly  hoisted,"  both  in  the  settlements  of  Auckland  and 
Wellington  ;  and  even  this  significant  fact  does  not  fully  reveal 
the  final  catastrophe,  nor  exhaust  the  incidents  in  the  closing 
chapter  of  Protestant  missions  in  ISTew  Zealand.  "  Among 
the  most  formidable  symptoms  is  the  reported  tendency  to 
4  recur  to  old  barbarous  customs  J  and  the  '  decreasing  influ- 
ence of  the  missionaries?""^  When  we  have  cited  their  own 
admission  of  both  these  facts,  we  may  conclude. 

"  The  stations  on  the  Waikato,"  we  are  told  by  the  Church 
Missionary  Society  in  1862,  "  have  all  been  greatly  affected  by 
the  excitement  of  the  war  ;  the  schools  have  been  much  reduced 
in  their  attendance ;"  &c.  "  We  have  not  much  to  record,"  says 
Archdeacon  Maunsell,  "  at  least  of  spiritual  things.  Political 
questions  seem  to  absorb  all  the  spare  thoughts  of  the  people." 
"  Our  members  are  reduced  to  less  than  half,"  adds  the  Rev.  B. 
Ashwell.  "  The  demoralizing  effects  of  the  war  among  some  of 

*  A  Summer's  Excursion,  p.  14. 

\  Memories  of  New  Zealand  Life,  p.  208. 

\  The,  Times,  September  14, 1860. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE  ANTIPODES.  471 

our  teachers  are  seen  by  their  lukewarmness  and  indifference  ; 
a  few  have  altogether  lapsed."  At  Tauranga,  on  the  East 
coast,  says  "  the  Bishop  of  Waiapu,"  "  religion  is  at  a  low  ebb. 
The  people  are  cold  and  indifferent,  and  many  who  seem  to 
have  begun  well,  have  gone  back."  "  Various  changes,"  writes 
Archdeacon  Brown,  speaking  of  "  his  own  district,"  "  have  not 
only  diminished  the  number  of  natives,  but  relaxed  discipline 
throughout  the  infant  churches,  and  in  many  ways  caused  the 
wheels  of  our  missionary  chariot  to  drag  heavily  onward." 

"  The  reports  from  the  Western  district  of  the  New  Zealand 
mission,"  it  is  confessed,  "  are  of  a  less  encouraging  character 
than  those  of  the  other  districts.  .  .  .  One  tribe,  the  Ngatiruani, 
have  formally  forbidden  missionaries  to  visit  them.  Another 
cause  of  discouragement  is  the  return  of  many  individuals  to 
the  native  customs,  of  which  tatooing  is  adopted  as  a  token.  .  .  . 
The  effects  of  religious  declension  and  neglect  of  the  means  of 
grace  have  been  more  manifest  of  late  years,  as  the  generation 
baptized  in  infancy  has  grown  up  in  nominal  Christianity."  It 
is  just  the  story  of  the  Hindoo  converts,  who  are  always  said 
to  be  more  reprobate  in  proportion  to  the  length  of  time  during 
which  they  have  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  baptism !  From 
the  Northern  district,  "the  aged  missionary ;  the  Rev.  Richard 
Davis,  speaks  of  having  entertained  a  good  hope  of  the  progress 
of  Christianity.  .  .  .  but  these  hopes,  he  states,  have  been 
blighted,  by  the  introduction  of  ardent  spirits,  and  by  the 
various  sins  to  which  intoxication  leads."  Finally,  the  Rev.  R. 
Taylor,  after  a  residence  of  twenty-six  years  in  New  Zealand, 
reports  as  follows  to  the  same  society  :  "  The  spiritual  declension 
of  the  natives  is,  as  far  as  my  observation  goes,  general.'1''* 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  shocking  unreality  of  Protestantism, 
that,  in  the  face  of  these  confessions,  collected  and  published 
by  themselves,  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  with  a  solemn 
mockery  of  truth  which  seems  to  cry  aloud  for  judgment, 
address  their  subscribers  in  these  words,  with  reference  to  New 
Zealand :  "  Such  an  instance  of  signal  blessing  upon  the 
labors  of  a  faithful  missionary  can  scarcely  be  paralleled  in 
modern  times.  The  mind  is  carried  back  to  primitive  ages, 
when  the  Word  of  God  grew  mightily  and  prevailed,  and  for- 
ward to  the  predicted  latter  season  when  a  nation  shall  be  born 
in  a  day."f 

Such,  in  its  broad  outlines,  is  the  history  of  missions  in  New 
Zealand.  The  very  savage,  as  he  reviews  in  his  own  mind,  or 
relates  to  his  children,  its  successive  phases,  though  he  may 

*  Church  Missionary  Society's  Report,  1862,  pp.  205-213. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  204. 


472  CHAPTER  V. 

care  too  little  about  his  soul  to  act  upon  his  convictions,  easily 
detects  on  which  side  is  truth,  on  which  side  God  and  His  holy 
angels.  Two  classes  of  teachers  have  claimed  his  attention. 
In  the  one  he  has  seen,  through  a  long  series  of  years,  and  with 
rare  exceptions,  corruption,  vanity,  and  worldliness ;  in  the  other, 
purity,  chastity,  and  a  blameless  life.  "  Their  continence," 
says  Dr.  Thomson,  "produced  a  strange  impression  on  the  mind 
of  the  natives,"  accustomed  to  a  different  exhibition  of  the 
Christian  character.  With  the  first  comers,  as  he  knows  to 
his  cost,  have  been  introduced  the  myriad  evils  of  confusion  and 
disorder,  of  shifting  and  incoherent  doctrine,  and  passionate 
religious  strife;  with  the  last  came  peace,  unity,  and  love. 
Finally,  while  the  one  could  attract  only  nominal  converts — 
whose  vices  are  attested  by  themselves — by  appealing  to  the 
coarse  instincts  of  worldly  interest  and  the  grossest  appetites  of 
our  nature;  the  others,  obliged  to  begin  by  inviting  the  half- 
civilized  native  to  abandon  even  the  temporal  rewards  which  he 
had  already  earned,  and  for  which  they  had  no  recompense  to 
offer  him,  have  yet  succeeded  in  winning  him,  not  only  from  the 
darkness  of  heathenism,  but  even  from  his  lucrative  association 
with  the  various  sects  in  which  he  had  been  previously  enrolled. 

We  are  far,  however,  from  asserting  that  all  the  native  con- 
verts to  the  faith  are  as  yet  intelligent  and  consistent  Christians, 
or  that  all  afford  unmixed  consolation  to  their  pastors.  Such  a 
statement  would  be  a  culpable  exaggeration,  which  the  spon- 
taneous testimony  of  their  spiritual  guides  would  suffice  to 
rebuke. 

Some  of  the  converts  from  the  Protestant  sects,  though  they 
reverence  the  unwonted  virtues  of  their  new  teachers,  have 
been  too  deeply  corrupted  by  previous  habits  of  hypocrisy  and 
fraud  to  be  easily  or  effectually  reformed.  Christianity  has 
long  since  appeared  to  them  a  purely  nominal  religion,  of  which 
the  professors  contrasted  unfavorably  even  with  pagans,  and 
whose  very  teachers  and  ministers  were  to  them  only  models 
of  incontinence,  cupidity,  and  injustice.  Some  also,  though 
rescued  from  such  influences,  are  but  partially  instructed;  while 
their  pastors,  unable  to  cultivate  the  whole  field  which  lies  be- 
fore them,  resisted  by  the  dead-weight  of  official  authority,  few 
in  number,  and  poor  in  this  world's  goods,  can  sometimes  only 
cast  their  seed  by  the  wayside,  and  then  pass  on,  hoping,  yet 
hardly  expecting,  that  they  may  one  day  find  leisure  to  watch 
its  after-growth,  to  tear  away  the  noxious  plants  which  may 
threaten  to  choke  it,  or  to  bind  up  the  weak  stems  which  may 
have  been  trodden  under  foot.  Yet  it  is  pleasant  to  read  the 
following  account  of  the  best  class  of  native  converts  by  one 
who  knows  them  so  well. 


MISSIONS  IN   THE  ANTIPODES.  473 

"  I  am  often  moved  to  tears,"  says  the  honored  prelate  to 
whom  New  Zealand  owes  so  much,  and  whose  virtues  even  his 
adversaries  have  so  often  confessed,  "  when  I  see  the  chief  of 
some  tribe  come  many  leagues  through  the  forests  to  consult  me 
on  some  point  which  embarrases  the  delicacy  of  his  con- 
science."* Here  again  we  have  an  example  of  that  powerful 
"influence  of  the  Confessional"  which  Sir  Emerson  Terment 
remarked  in  Ceylon,  and  without  whose  aid  the  Catholic  mis- 
sionary knows  that  all  hope  of  confirming  men  in  habits  of 
virtue  is  vain  and  chimerical.  "  Scarcely  have  they  received 
instruction  in  the  law  of  God,"  Bishop  Pompallier  continues 
to  say,  "  when  their  only  study  is  to  conform  their  conduct  to 
it.  With  what  simplicity  do  they  open  their  mind  to  the  min- 
ister of  salvation,  and  \r:th  what  sincere  attachment  to  us  do 
they  return  the  services  we  render  them.  .  .  .  They  might  be 
taken,  from  their  dress  and  appearance,  for  a  band  of  robbers ; 
yet  they  are  inoffensive  sheep,  who  follow  the  footsteps  of  him 
whom  Jesus  has  given  them  as  their  shepherd."  The  bishop 
even  adds,  that  many  who  are  not  Catholics  have  learned  how 
to  distinguish  between  "  the  trunk,  as  they  call  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  the  severed  'branch  churches." 

So  little  difficulty  have  the  true  apostles  in  winning  these 
rude  minds  to  the  comprehension  of  "  Church  principles,"  as 
well  as  of  the  other  great  evangelical  truths  with  which  they 
are  inseparably  connected  ;  wrhile  their  rivals,  busy  with  cease- 
less strife,  and  filling  the  air  with  mutual  reproaches,  fail  to 
teach  them  even  the  doctrines  of  the  Holy  Trinity  and  the  In- 
carnation, make  religion  only  the  occasion  of  new  crimes,  the 
Bible  itself  an  excuse  for  committing  them,  and  after  half  a 
century  of  unblessed  effort,  have  only  forced  the  reluctant 
savage  to  accept  a  lot  more  full  of  calamity  and  malediction 
than  even  his  original  state, — the  dread  responsibilities  of  Chris- 
tianity without  its  gifts  and  graces.  And  lastly,  the  annalists 
of  New  Zealand  missions  confess,  with  sorrow  and  shame,  that 
the  natives,  familiar  with  the  incessant  divisions  and  unappeas- 
able conflicts  of  the  Protestant  sects,  have  at  length  delivered 
that  memorable  verdict,  so  often  recorded  against  Protestantism 
by  the  instinct  of  pagan  nations, — that  verdict  which  is  at, 
once  the  measure  of  its  influence,  the  monument  of  its  results, 
and  the  summary  of  its  triumphs,  "  You  have  taught  us  that 
Heathenism  with  love,  is  better  than  Christianity  without  it." 

*  Annals. 


CHAPTEE  VL 


MISSIONS    IN    OCEANICA. 


IN  that  wide  waste  of  waters  which  for  ages  have  rolled  their 
floods  between  the  Old  and  ISTew  Continents,  and  where  once 
the  sea-bird  found  no  rest  for  his  foot,  a  hundred  islands,  cast 
up  from  their  deep  ocean-bed  by  some  convulsive  throe,  are 
now  securely  anchored.  Once  naked  and  unsightly,  they  have 
long  since  been  clothed  with  grass,  and  flowers,  and  trees. 
Upon  their  low  hills  cluster  the  dark  myrtle  and  the  slender 
palm ;  and  through  their  valleys,  rich  with  spreading  ferns, 
bright  rivulets  wind  their  course.  Here  the  sugar-cane  and 
bread-fruit  grow  untended,  and  a  thousand  edible  roots,  un- 
known in  other  climes,  lurk  in  the  untilled  soil.  To  these  fair 
islands,  sheltered  by  coral  barriers  from  the  ocean  wave,  men 
found  their  way, — from  what  land,  when,  and  how,  only  the 
angels  know.  By  what  strange  migrations  they  were  peopled, 
history  will  never  tell.  This  is  God's  secret. 

Yet  science,  which  is  never  more  honorably  occupied  than 
in  the  investigation  of  such  problems,  has  applied  its  patient 
induction  to  this ;  and  if  it  has  not  absolutely  determined  how 
the  islands  of  Eastern  and  Western  Ocean ica  were  peopled,  has 
at  least  suggested  how  they  might  have  been.  William  Yon 
Humboldt  considers  that  he  has  established  the  identity  of  the 
Malays  and  Polynesians  ;  and  Prichard,  who  adopts  his  conclu 
sion,  calls  the  latter  "  Malayo-Polynesians."*  M.  de  Rienzi, 
indeed,  is  certain  that  they  came  originally  from  the  island  of 
Borneo.  Other  writers  are  of  opinion  that  the  natives  of  some 
of  the  Pacific  islands  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from  the 
Caucasian  family.  But  Sir  George  Simpson,  governor  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  territories, — who  reports,  in  1847,  that  "  the 
whole  group  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  is  known  to  be  slowly  but 
surely  continuing  to  rise,  to  be  still,  as  it  were,  in  the  throes  of 

*  Natural  History  of  Man,  sec.  82. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  475 

creation," — speaks  as  follows  of  the  origin  of  the  Polynesian, 
race,  whose  religious  history  we  are  to  narrate  in  the  present 
chapter.  "From  what  country,  then,  of  Asia,  did  the  Poly- 
nesians spring  ?  Almost  to  a  moral  certainty  from  some  point, 
or  rather  points,  between  the  southern  extremity  of  Malacca 
and  the  northern  limits  of  Japan."*  Many  considerations, 
which  need  not  here  be  noticed,  combine  to  recommend  this 
conclusion  ;  yet  the  origin  of  the  Malays  themselves  is  still  un- 
certain, and  while  some  look  for  their  birthplace  on  the  south- 
eastern shores  of  China,  Bopp  thinks  their  language  derived 
from  the  Sanscrit.f 

From  the  Polynesians  themselves  no  aid  has  been  received 
in  the  discussion  of  this  problem  of  ethnology ;  and  the  Abbe 
Caret,  referring  especially  to  the  Gambier  Archipelago,  in 
which  he  long  resided  as  a  missionary,  warns  us  "  not  to  ask 
of  the  population  of  these  islands  any  explicit  information  con- 
cerning their  origin ;  all  your  questions  will  remain  unan- 
swered ;  on  this  subject  their  traditions  are  silent.  Perhaps 
these  tribes  had  their  origin  in  the  remotest  antiquity  :  it  takes 
a  very  long  time  for  a  people  to  forget  the  history  of  its  origin. 
I  have  heard  the  best  informed  of  the  natives  enumerate  as 
many  as  fifty  kings,  who  are  said  to  have  presided,  one  after 
the  other,  in  the  government  of  the  Archipelago/' 

One  source  of  information,  which  existed  at  an  earlier  period, 
and  from  which  a  careful  inquirer  might  perhaps  have  con- 
structed at  least  the  fragments  of  a  history,  has  been,  in  many 
of  the  islands,  imprudently  destroyed,  by  men  whose  proceed- 
ings will  be  presently  recounted  to  us  by  competent  witnesses. 
"  One  fault,"  says  the  learned  Mosblech,  in  his  treatise  on  the 
dialects  of  Eastern  Oceanica,  "  for  which  we  can  never  pardon 
the  Methodist  ministers" — he  means  the  Protestant  missiona- 
ries— "  is  their  having  destroyed,  by  an  irrational  zeal,  all  the 
poetic  compositions  of  this  people.  No  one  can  be  blind  to  the 
injury  which  they  have  thus  inflicted  upon  science  and  history. 
The  Catholic  missionaries,  guided  by  their  intelligent  chief  the 
Archbishop  of  Chalcedon,  who  admirably  appreciates  not  only 
what  belongs  to  religion  but  also  the  things  which  relate  to 
science,  have  acted  with  more  caution. ";{: 

It  appears  that  the  mythological,  as  well  as  the  pastoral  and 
erotic  compositions  of  the  natives,  some  of  which  were  no  doubt 

*  Narrative  of  a  Journey  Round  the  World,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  i.,  p.  7.  "  So  recent- 
ly as  1833  the  wreck  of  a  Japanese  junk  on  the  coast  of  Oregon  showed  how,  in 
like  manner,  across  the  wider  waste  of  the  Pacific,  the  natives  of  the  Old  World 
may  have  been  borne,"  &c.  Wilson,  Prehistoric  Man,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  158. 

f  Mohl,  Rapports  f aits  d  laSociete  Asiatique,  tome  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  8. 

i  Notice  sur  la  langue  de  I'Oceanie  Orientate  ;  Journal  Asiatique,  tome  iii., 
p.  441,  4me  serie  (1844). 


476 


CHAPTER   VI. 


of  questionable  purity,  but  which  had  at  least  a  scientific 
value,  were  violently  suppressed  by  their  English  teachers, 
and  not  only  suppressed  but  destroyed.  With  them  perished 
all  the  lays  and  rythmical  legends  which  they  had  received 
from  their  forefathers.  What  their  new  masters  gave  them 
instead,  we  shall  see  hereafter,  and  how  far  they  have  profited 
by  the  change. 

But  we  must  now  ent.er,  without  further  preface,  upon  the 
wide  field  which  lies  before  us,  and  in  which  we  shall  once 
more  trace,  by  the  aid  of  the  same  class  of  witnesses,  the  im- 
pressive contrast  of  which  we  have  already  seen  so  many 
examples.  It  will  be  necessary  to  begin  by  dividing  into 
groups  the  island  world  which  we  are  about  to  visit,  and  in 
this  task  we  have  no  choice  but  to  adopt  the  classification 
which  both  history  and  geography  prescribe. 

Of  the  various  groups  which  we  are  about  to  notice,  and 
whose  religious  annals  we  shall  find  to  be  pregnant  with  those 
startling  contrasts  which  urgently  invite  our  consideration, — 
not  only  because  they  decisively  reveal  the  respective  influence 
and  character  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  missions,  but  because 
they  remove  to  the  clear  region  of  historical  facts  that  old  con- 
troversy which  is  obscure  and  unprofitable  while  it  turns  only 
upon  cunning  words  and  distorted  texts, — some  have  been 
visited  by  Catholics  alone,  some  have  belonged  exclusively  to 
Protestants,  and  others  have  been  occupied  by  both.  In  the 
first,  religion  has  gained  its  accustomed  and  undisputed  victory ; 
in  the  second,  enormous  expenditure  has  been  attended  by  uni- 
versal corruption  and  admitted  failure;  in  the  third,  heresy 
has  waged  its  usual  warfare  of  violence  and  calumny,  has  been 
combated  by  patient  charity  and  long  suffering,  and  has 
finally  confessed  its  discomfiture  and  defeat.  This  is  the  his- 
tory which  we  are  about  to  trace. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  Philippine  Islands,  and  those  con- 
tiguous groups  which  lie  nearest  to  the  mainland,  whose  happy 
fortune  it  was  to  be  discovered  by  men  who  labored  for  God 
rather  than  for  themselves,  and  who  carried  with  them  wher- 
ever they  went  the  faith  which  was  the  light  of  their  own . 
souls,  and  the  charity  which  obliged  them  to  communicate  it 
to  others. 

Argensola,  the  careful  and  conscientious  historian  of  these 
regions,  whose  intelligent  candor  has  earned  the  applause,  not 
only  of  the  Council  of  the  Indies  by  whom  he  was  employed, 
but  even  of  his  English  editors,  has  recounted  all  the  details  of 
that  generous  apostolate  which  won  the  Philippines  to  the 
Cross  of  Christ.  *  From  him  we  learn  how  the  false  Prophet 
came  to  be  honored  even  in  these  remote  islands  of  the  East ; 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  477 

| 

how  Persian  and  Arab  conquerors  carried  thither  the  plague 
which  had  enveloped  half  the  world,  and  from  which  it  is  the 
glory  of  the  Roman  See  to  have  saved  Europe  by  that  long 
series  of  efforts  which  alone  preserved  Christendom  from  the 
destroying  legions  who  had  overflowed  the  earth  from  the 
pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  wastes  of  Tartary,  and  who  once 
threatened  to  hang  up  in  every  temple  of  Europe  the  impure 
banner  which  they  had  already  planted  on  Mount  Sion. 

Against  such  adversaries  the  first  apostles  of  the  Philippines 
lifted  up  the  Cross,  and  though  they  fell,  like  their  brethren 
in  other  lands,  cut  down  by  the  sword  of  Moslem  or  Pagan, 
consumed  by  fire,  or  torn  into  fragments  on  the  scaffold,  they 
conquered  even  in  death.  The  conflict  did  not  last  long ;  the 
decree  had  gone  forth  that  here  the  Cross  should  triumph,  and 
"  the  false  and  corrupt  memory  of  Mahomet,"  as  Mendoza 
simply  relates,  "  was  with  the  Gospel  of  Christ  easily  rooted 
out."*  A  few  words  will  suffice  to  describe  the  events  which 
led  to  this  result. 

The  Philippines  were  discovered  by  Magellan,  as  Gemelli 
notices  in  his  history  of  the  Ladrone  Islands,  in  1521,  but  it 
was  not  till  a  later  period  that  they  were  subdued  and  colonized 
by  Spain.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Ladrone  group,  for  we  may 
speak  of  them  together,  since  they  have  a  common  history, 
"  had  no  notion  of  a  Deity,"  we  are  told  by  Le  Gobien,  "  nor 
any  religious  worship,  nor  had  they  any  temple,  priest,  or  forms 
of  worship."  Their  only  religion  consisted  in  "  some  irregular 
notions  of  a  hell  and  a  heaven. "f  Towards  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  as  we  learn  from  Argensola,  more  than  six 
thousand  Christians  had  already  been  martyred  in  the  single 
province  of  Ternate,  "that  so,"  he  adds,  "the  foundation  of  our 
faith  may  be  in  all  parts  cemented  with  the  blood  of  the  faith- 
ful. They  dismembered  the  bodies,  and  burned  the  legs  and 
arms  in  the  sight  of  the  still  living  trunks.  They  impaled  the 
women,  and  tore  out  their  bowels  ;  children  were  pulled  piece- 
meal before  their  mothers'  eyes,  and  infants  were  rent  from 
their  wombs.":): 

Yet  all  these  tortures  were  bravely  endured  by  neophytes  who 
had  seen  their  pastors  tread  the  same  Via  Dolorosa  with  unfal- 
tering step,  and  even  children  learned  to  imitate  the  fruitful 
example  of  such  teachers.  A  Portuguese  vessel,  sailing  by  the 

*  Historic  of  the  Kingdome  of  China,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  261 ;  published  by 
the  Hakluyt  Society. 

f  History  of  the  Ladrone  Islands,  in  Callander's  Terra  Australia  Gognita, 
vol.  iii.,  p.  53. 

\  Discovery  and  Conquest  of  the  Molucca  and  Philippine  Islands,  by  B.  L.  de 
Argensola,  book  iii.,  p.  65  (1708). 


478  CHAPTER  VI. 

coast  of  Amboyna,  picked  np  a  crowd  of  fugitives  swimming 
near  the  shore,  "and  having  viewed  them  at  leisure,"  says 
Argensola,  "found  that  none  of  them  were  above  twelve  years 
of  age.  Yet  at  this  same  time,  when  cruelty  advanced  God's 
glory,  idolaters  and  Mahometans  were  converted,  and  our  reli- 
gious men  preached  and  catechized  without  any  fear  of  punish- 
ment, which  they  rather  coveted,  and  thought  themselves 
unworthy  of."  He  allows,  indeed,  that  many  apostatized, 
overcome  by  anguish,  and  this  need  not  surprise  us.  In  1697, 
ten  of  the  missionaries  had  been  martyred  in  the  Ladrone 
Islands,  and  for  a  time  the  rest  were  obliged  to  fly,  but  it  was 
only  to  return  when  the  storm  had  passed.*  In  the  island  of 
Saypan,  Father  de  Medina,  a  man  of  illustrious  birth,  was  the 
first  martyr,  in  1670.  In  1672,  Sanvitores,  also  belonging  to 
one  of  the  noblest  houses  of  Spain — for  these  men  began  by 
flinging  away  the  wealth  and  honors  which  others  consume  a 
whole  life  in  endeavoring  to  acquire — was  martyred  in  the 
island  of  Tinian.  By  his  first  discourse, — unaided  by  the 
"  ceremonial"  which  is  supposed  to  be  so  effective  in  such  cases, 
— he  won  fifteen  hundred  converts ;  and  before  he  died  had  es- 
tablished the  faith  in  thirteen  islands,  founded  three  seminaries, 
and  baptized  fifty  thousand  idolaters.  In  1699,  idolatry  had 
almost  become  extinct  in  the  Ladrone  Islands.  Surely  martyr- 
dom was  a  suitable  termination  of  such  a  career  as  that  of  San- 
vitores, who,  it  may  be  added,  predicted  the  future  conversion 
of  the  islands  of  Oceanica,  though  he  was  only  acquainted  with 
two  of  them,  the  Pelew  and  the  Caroline  groups.f 

In  the  Philippines,  the  success  of  the  missionaries  was  so 
complete,  that  even  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century  Men- 
doza  could  say,  "According  unto  the  common  opinion,  at  this 
day  there  is  converted  and  baptized  more  than  four  hundred 
thousand  souls."  In  1598,  as  an  ardent  Protestant  observes,  in 
his  account  of  the  voyage  of  Oliver  Noort,  and  speaking  of 
what  he  calls  the  "  Lusson"  islands,  "There  are  few  Spaniards, 
and  but  one  priest,  which  is  of  great  esteeme ;  and  had  they 
priests  enough,  all  the  neighbour  nations  would  be  subject  to 
the  Spaniards ;"  for,  he  adds,  "  the  Jesuits  are  in  reputation 
with  their  converts  as  demi-gods."^:  And  this  work  continued, 
until,  as  later  Protestant  writers  will  presently  tell  us,  the 
four  million  inhabitants  of  these  islands  had  embraced  that 
Catholic  faith  from  which  they  have  never  since  swerved. 
Such  is  the  first  chapter  in  the  history  of  Polynesian  missions. 
How  far  it  resembles  the  same  apostolic  work  in  the  lauds 

*  Gemelli,  in  Churchill's  Collection  of  Voyages,  vol.  iv.,  p.  462. 

\  Henrion,  Histoire  des  Missions  Gatholiques,  tome  ii.,  2de  partie,  p.  539. 

j  Purchas'  Pilgrims,  vol.  i.,  lib.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  pp.  76,  76. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  479 

which  we  have  already  visited,  and  especially  in  characteristic 
solidity  and  permanence,  we  shall  now  learn  from  Protestant 
witnesses,  whom  Providence  seems  to  have  employed  to  this 
end,  that  their  co-religionists  might  the  more  readily  accept 
their  testimony. 

The  Rev.  David  Abeel, — a  Protestant,  missionary,  who  seems 
to  have  wandered  over  the  lands  beyond  the  Ganges,  searching 
for  something  to  do  and  finding  nothing,  and  whose  book  is 
simply  a  record  of  the  triumphs  of  Catholics  and  of  the  choleric 
disgust  with  which  he  witnessed  them, — thus  writes  of  the 
Philippines:  "The  Church  of  Rome  has  here  proselyted  to 
itself  the  entire  population.  The  natives  have  become  bigoted 
Papists.  The  influence  of  the  priests  is  unbounded."  It  is 
only  fair,  however,  to  this  gentleman  to  add,  that  he  considers 
the  conversion  of  the  Philippines,  accomplished  by  such  men 
as  Medina  and  Sanvitores,  a  remarkable  example  of  "the 
power  of  the  Beast."* 

In  the  year  1858,  Mr.  Crawfurd,  whose  writings  are  well 
known  in  this  country,  and  who  was  formerly  governor  of  Singa- 
pore, made  the  following  declaration  at  a  public  missionary 
meeting:  "In  the  Philippine  Islands  the  Spaniards  have  con- 
verted several  millions  of  people  to  the  Roman  Catholic  faith, 
and  an  immense  improvement  in  their  social  condition  has  been 
the  consequence."! 

"Much  credit,"  says  Sir  Henry  Ellis,  in  spite  of  incurable 
prejudice,  "is  due  to  the  Spaniards  for  the  establishment  of 
schools  throughout  the  colony,  and  their  unremitting  exertion  to 
preserve  and  propagate  Christianity  by  this  best  of  all  possible 
means,  the  diffusion  of  knowledge."^:  "It  is  said,"  observes  the 
wife  of  the  American  navigator,  Captain  Morrell,  "that  in 
Manilla  there  are  more  convents  than  in  any  other  city  in  the 
world  of  its  size,  and  the  general  voice  of  natives  and  foreigners 
declares  that  they  are  under  excellent  regulations."  And  then 
she  describes  their  inmates.  "They  all  seemed  full  of  occu- 
pation. There  is  no  idleness  in  these  convents,  as  is  generally 
supposed," — and  as  her  own  account  of  the  various  works 
accomplished  in  them  sufficiently  proves.  Moreover,  "their 
devotions  begin  at  the  dawn  of  the  day,  and  are  often  repeated 
during  the  whole  of  it,  or  until  late  in  the  evening,  in  some  form 
or  other."  Altogether,  the  effect  produced  on  the  mind  of  this 
lady  was  remarkably  different  from  that  which  Mr.  Abeel  re- 
cords. "I  was  born  a  Protestant,"  she  says,  "and  trust  that  I 


*  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  China,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  328. 

\  Times,  2d  December,  1858. 

\.  Journal  of  an  Embassy  to  China,  ch.  viii.,  p.  443. 


4:80  CHAPTER  VI. 

shall  die  a  Protestant,  but  hereafter  I  shall  have  more  charity  for 
all  who  profess  to  love  religion,  whatever  may  be  their  creed."* 

In  1853,  M.  de  La  Gironiere,  who  spent  twenty  years  in  the 
Philippines,  informs  us  that  the  present  race  of  missionaries  is 
not  unworthy  to  be  compared  with  their  martyred  predecessors. 
Thus  he  relates  how  Father  Miguel  de  San-Francisco,  a  friend 
of  his  own,  used  to  collect  the  young  men  in  his  house,  four  at 
a  time,  keep  them  with  him  a  fortnight  under  diligent  instruc- 
tion, and  then  send  them  in  different  directions  to  communicate 
to  others  the  lessons  which  they  had  received  from  his  patient 
charity.  In  this  way  he  would  contrive  gradually  to  leaven  a 
whole  district.  M.  de  La  Gironiere  also  notices  the  important 
fact,  that  while  Manilla  and  its  suburbs  contain  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  souls,  the  Spanish  and  Creole 
population  hardly  amount  to  one-tenth  of  that  number,  f 

In  1845,  an  American  statistical  writer  addressed  to  Mr. 
Ingersoll  the  following  account  of  the  Philippines :  "The  colony 
is  in  a  very  flourishing  condition.  Most  of  the  native  Tagalos 
and  Horaforos  have  been  converted  to  the  Catholic  faith. 
There  are  three  suffragan  bishops  in  the  provinces;  one  of 
them,  the  Bishop  of  New  Segovia,  island  of  Luzon,  wrote  me 
in  1837,  that  his  diocese  consisted  of  upwards  of  six  hundred 
thousand  Christian  souls.";):  Let  these  facts  be  compared  with 
the  history  of  Dutch  or  English  Protestant  missions  in  the 
same  part  of  the  world. 

The  remarkable  influence  of  the  clergy,  in  spite  of  the  small 
proportion  of  Spaniards  to  natives,  is  attested  by  many  writers. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  present  century,  M.  de  Guignes  re- 
marked, from  his  own  observation,  that  "  the  European  priests 
are  greatly  respected  by  the  Indians,  who  always  consult  them 
in  their  various  undertakings,  and  even  about  the  payment  of 
taxes  ;"§  which  agrees  with  what  Mr.  Abeel  says  impatiently  of 
their  "  unbounded  influence."  Sir  John  Bowring,  in  1859,  con- 
firms the  testimony  of  M.  de  Guignes,  and  once  more  reports 
of  the  clergy,  "They  exercise  an  influence  which  would  seem 
magical  were  it  not  by  their  devotees  deemed  divine."|| 

Dr.  Ball,  an  American  Protestant  traveller,  agrees  with  M. 
de  La  Gironiere  and  others  as  to  the  character  of  the  Spanish 
clergy.  Of  one  whom  he  met  at  Manilla,  he  says,  "He  has  a 
fund  of  knowledge  on  almost  every  subject,  speaks  six  or  seven 

*  Narrative  of  a  Voyage,  by  Abby  Jane  Morrell,  ch.  ii.,  p.  44 ;  ch.  v.,  p.  90. 
f  Vingt  annees  aux  Philippines,  par  P.  de  La  Gironiere,  p.  89  (1858). 
t  Letter  to  the  Hon.  Charles  I.  Ingersoll.  &c.,  by  Aaron  H.  Palmer,  p.  14. 
§  Voyages  d  Pekin,  Manille,  &c.,  tome  iii.,  p.  391. 

I  A  Visit  to  the  Philippine  Islands,  by  Sir  John  Bowring,  LL.D.,  F.R.S., 
ch.  xii.,  p.  210. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  481 

languages,  and  has  declined  an  offer  of  the  president  of  the 
seminary  here,  preferring  to  remain  always  in  the  capacity 
of  missionary."* 

Lastly,  that  we  may  hear  every  kind  of  witness,  and  yet  not 
encumber  ourselves  with  superfluous  testimony,  let  us  cite  one 
more  Protestant  writer,  who  tells  us,  in  1861,  the  impression 
which  he  had  formed  of  religion  in  the  Philippines,  in  spite  of 
the  prejudices  both  of  creed  and  country  which  threatened  to 
warp  his  judgment.  Mr.  MacMicking,  who  spent  some  years  in 
these  islands,  where  he  only  partly  unlearned  earlier  preposses- 
sions, declares  of  the  natives,  that  "the  warriors  who  gained 
them  over  to  Spain  were  not  their  steel-clad  chivalry,  but  the 
soldiers  of  the  Cross — the  priests,  who  astonished  and  kindled 
them  by  their  enthusiasm  in  the  cause  of  Christ."  He  confesses 
also  that  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuits,  who  were  banished  from 
the  Philippines  in  1768,  u  was  attended  with  the  worst  effects  to 
the  trade  and  agriculture  of  the  islands."  The  people,  he  allows, 
are  so  truly  what  Miv  Abeel  calls  "  bigoted  Papists,"  that 
44  religious  processions  are  as  frequently  passing  through  the 
streets  as  they  are  in  the  Roman  Catholic  countries  of  Europe." 
And  presently  he  adds,  uThe  Church  has  long  proved  to  be,  upon 
the  whole,  by  much  the  most  cheap  and  efficacious  instrument 
of  good  government  and  order ;"  while  even  the  common  people 
4*  very  generally  learn  reading  by  its  aid — so  much,  at  least,  as 
to  enable  them  to  read  their  prayer-books  or  other  religious 
manuals.  There  are  very  few  Indians  who  are  unable  to  read, 
and  1  have  always  observed  that  the  Manilla  men  serving  on 
board  ships,  and  composing  their  crews,  have  been  much  of'tener 
able  to  subscribe  their  names  to  the  ship's  articles  than  the 
British  seamen  on  board  the  same  vessels  could  do."f  Lastly, 
he  admits  that  the  present  rulers  and  pastors  of  these  islands 
have  in  no  degree  degenerated  from  their  ancestors.  44  The 
enlightened  and  benevolent  government  of  Don  Pascual  Enrile, 
who  was  Captain-general  of  the  Philippines  from  1831  to  1835, 
and  his  entire  administration,  has  left  behind  it  the  happiest 
results  for  the  people  he  governed," — a  statement  confirmed  in 
1859  by  Lord  Elgin's  secretary,  who  also  visited  Manilla,  and 
found  that  44  the  advanced  views  of  Don  Pascual  Enrile  have 
in  many  instances  been  improved  upon,  and  carried  out  by  the 
present  governor.";):  Of  the  clergy  Mr.  MacMicking  speaks 
as  follows :  u  Most  of  the  priests  I  have  been  in  contact  with 
appeared  to  be  thoroughly  convinced  of,  and  faithful  to,  their 

*  Rambles  in  Eastern  Asia,  ch  xxiv.,  p.  200. 

f  Recollections  of  Manilla  and  the  Philippines,  by  Robert   MacMicking, 
Esq.,  p.  45. 

J  Narrative  of  Lord  Elgin's  Mission,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  82. 

32 


482  CHAPTER  VI. 

religion  in  its  purity" — a  large  concession  from  a  Scotchman. 
Of  "the  "present  Archbishop  of  Manilla,"  he  speaks  with  the 
utmost  respect,  and  especially  of  his  "  piety  and  good  feeling 
towards  all  men,"  though  he  naturally  resents  the  refusal  of 
Christian  burial  to  Protestants ;  and  he  sums  up  his  frank  ad- 
missions by  the  following  generous  account  of  the  modern 
Spanish  missionaries :  "  These  good  men  have  penetrated  where 
soldiers  dare  not  enter  with  arms  in  their  hands,  and  in  their 
case  truly  the  sword  has  given  place  to  the  gown,  with  good 
effects  to  all  concerned  in  the  reduction  of  these  wild  Indians 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  and  the  arts  of  civilized  life  ;  for 
many  hundreds  of  them,  nay,  I  believe  thousands,  are  now 
peaceful  cultivators  of  the  soil,  which  these  good  Fathers  have 
taught  them  how  to  till,  instead  of  living,  as  they  formerly  did,  at 
warfare  with  mankind,  and  solely  on  the  produce  of  the  chase." 
And  they  continue  the  same,  he  says,  up  to  the  last  hour ;  for 
whereas  there  are  still  in  the  remote  mountains  of  Ylocos  and 
Pangasinan  some  tribes  of  pagan  Indians,  "  the  well-directed 
energies  of  several  enthusiastic  missionaries,  who  have  as  yet 
only  found  an  entrance  among  them,  are  likely  to  civilize  and 
ameliorate  their  condition."* 

Eight  years  later,  Sir  John  Bo  wring,  in  spite  of  scant  sym- 
pathy with  Catholics  or  their  religion — though  he  always  writes 
with  temper  and  moderation,  and  confesses  that  he  "  found 
among  the  clergy  men  worthy  of  being  loved  and  honored," — 
relates  that  in  the  diocese  of  Ylocos,  in  1859,  there  were  fifteen 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  seventy-five  baptisms,  and  that  the 
number  of  Christians  was  three  hundred  and  fifty-seven  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  eighteen. f 

Such  have  been  the  peaceful'triumphs  of  religion  in  that  part 
of  Eastern  Oceanica  which  Providence  has  confided,  as  if  to 
show  her  inexhaustible  fecundity,  to  the  healing  power  of  the 
Church,  and  the  fruitful  ministrations  of  her  servants.  Whole 
nations  of  savage  men,  numbering  several  millions,  have  been 
converted,  civilized,  and  instructed  by  successive  generations  of 
pastors,  and  have  never  ceased  to  repay  their  apostolic  labors 
by  loving  confidence,  devout  and  obedient  service,  and  unshaken 
constancy  in  the  faith.  Yet  there  had  been  a  time  when  this 
people,  now  wholly  Christian, had  been  so  completely  subject  to 
the  dominion  of  evil  spirits,  that  "mothers  at  the  first  mention 
of  baptism  concealed  their  children,  or  carried  them  away  to  the 
mountains,  while  the  men  could  not  endure  so  much  as  to  hear 


*  Recollections,  &c.,  ch.  xxxiii.,  p.  290. 
f  Ch.  xii.,  p.  213. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  483 

the  name  of  Christ."*  And  now  they  reproach  by  the  ardor 
of  their  faith  the  Christians  of  older  churches.  Blessed  are  the 
feet  of  the  messengers  of  peace,  and  blessed  the  lands  to  which 
they  bear  them.  "  Beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet 
of  them  that  showeth  forth  good,  that  preacheth  salvation,  that 
saith  to  Sion,  Thy  God  shall  reign." 

We  are  now  to  pass  to  other  scenes.  We  do  not  stay  to 
speak  of  Protestantism  in  the  Philippines,  because  it  has  no 
existence.  "  To  our  shame  be  it  said,"  observes  a  British  offi- 
cer in  1859,  "  there  is  no  Protestant  place  of  worship  on  the 
island ;  and  even  the  burial-ground  is  in  an  unseemly  position 
and  condition,  and,  I  believe,  unconsecrated."f  Let  us  pro- 
ceed, then,  with  our  narrative.  Thus  far  we  have  spoken  of 
evangelists  who  abandoned  all  which  the  natural  man  craves, 
—home,  parents,  and  kindred, — that  they  might  with  greater 
freedom  proclaim  "the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ."  We 
have  now  to  tell  of  others,  who  also  assumed  the  title  of  "  mis- 
sionaries," but  only  in  order  to  improve  their  worldly  estate. 
Each  class  was  successful  in  the  object  of  its  ambition  ;  the 
one  found  toil  and  martyrdom,  the  other  wealth  and  repose. 


SOCIETY    ISLANDS. 

Let  us  go  forth  into  the  wide  ocean,  leaving  far  behind  us 
the  coasts  of  Asia,  and  we  shall  come  to  the  islands  of  which 
we  spoke  in  the  beginning  of  this  chapter.  They  have  been 
called  "  the  latest  conquest  of  modern  navigators ;"  and  it  was 
natural  that,  lying  midway  between  East  and  West,  they 
should  first  be  visited  by  the  ships  of  those  sister  nations  whose 
vast  commerce  seeks  to  link  the  two  hemispheres  in  one  by 
multiplying  the  stations  between  them.  England  and  America, 
rivals  in  a  traffic  which  embraces  the  world,  and  which  is 
equally  honorable  to  the  skill  and  enterprise  of  both,  have 
carried  their  flag  to  every  islet  to  which  the  ocean  gave  access. 
With  their  mariners,  a  hardy  and  adventurous  race,  went  men 
of  another  order,  whose  ostensible  purpose  was  the  conversion 
of  the  heathen.  It  was  from  England  and  America  that  they 
went  forth ;  and  a  writer  of  the  latter  nation,  who  warmly  es- 
pouses their  cause,  and,  unlike  most  of  his  countrymen,  speaks 
of  the  Catholic  Church  in  language  which  is  always  trivial  and 
generally  indecent,  tells  us  why  they  went.  "The  Divine 
command, 4  Go  ye  and  teach  all  nations,' "  he  crudely  observes, 

*  Jouvency,  Hist.  Soc.  Jesu,  pars  5ta,  lib.  xxii.,  p.  666. 

f  H<mg  Kong  to  Manilla,  by  H.  T.  Ellis,  R.N.,  ch.  xiii,  p.  244. 


484  CHAPTER   VI. 

"  was  obeyed  by  that  people  who  had  been  the  most  alive  to 
its  commercial  advantages!"*  The  missionaries  whom  he  de- 
fends, or  at  least  most  of  them,  appeared  to  have  obeyed  the 
difficult  precept  from  the  same  politic  motive.  We  shall  see 
them  presently  at  their  work. 

A  French  writer,  who  had  examined  all  the  facts,  as  far  as 
they  were  then  revealed,  which  we  are  about  to  notice,  observed 
a  few  years  ago,  that  the  Protestant  missionaries  in  Oceanica 
appeared  to  have  aimed  at  establishing,  in  all  its  islands,  Ck  a 
theocratic  and  commercial  fief  for  their  numerous  posterity." 
The  latter  half  of  this  design  has  been  partly  accomplished  in 
some  of  the  groups,  the  former  has  been  wholly  unsuccessful,. 
Let  us  visit,  in  order,  the  scenes  of  their  labor,  and  begin  with 
the  Society  Islands,  where  they  first  commenced  the  operations 
which  we  are  now  to  relate. 

Most  people  have  heard  of  "  the  missionary  voyage  of  the 
ship  Duff."  It  was  in  this  vessel,  more  honored  than  the 
sacred  galley  of  Athens,  or  the  bark  which  carried  the  fortunes 
of  Caesar,  that  England  dispatched  to  the  favored  isles  of  the 
Pacific  her  first  missionaries.  "We  need  not  recount  here  the 
well-known  "instructions"  addressed  to  "Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wilson," 
— the  solemn  injunctions  laid  upon  the  missionaries  committed 
to  their  joint  oversight, — nor  the  hymns  of  triumph  which 
heralded  the  parting  ship,  and  accompanied  her  on  her  way. 
Who  is  not  familiar  with  the  tale?  Who  is  ignorant  that 
if  it  provoked  a  smile  in  some,  it  has  excited,  during  a  long 
series  of  years,  the  vehement  sympathy  of  others  ?  Even  as 
late  as  1859,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  English  reviewers 
still  speaks  of  the  "  voyage  of  the  Duff,"  with  a  burst  of  un- 
controllable enthusiasm,  as  "  one  of  the  manifestations  of  the 
pious  zeal  of  the  nineteenth  century,  fraught  with  a  promise 
very  different  from  that  of  the  crusades  of  the  middle  ages."f 
The  crusades,  which  saved  religion  and  civilization,  were, 
according  to  this  authority,  only  a  trivial  incident  in  human 
annals,  compared  with  "  the  missionary  voyage  of  the  ship 
Duff/7 

Let  us  enter  this  historic  vessel,  and  form  some  acquaintance 
with  her  passengers  and  crew.  Even  the  latter,  we  are  assured 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Campbell,  in  1840,  "  were  many  of  them  as 
truly  godly  men  as  the  missionaries  themselves,"  whose  "  char- 
acter and  vocation,"  this  historian  of  missions  adds,  "  were 
purely  spiritual ;"  so  that  he  exults,  after  the  lapse  of  so  many 
years,  in  the  consoling  recollection,  that  "  Christianity,  in  her 

*  History  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  by  James  J.  Jarvee,  ch.  xi.,  p.  357. 
f  Quarterly  Review,  July,  1859,  p.  176. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  4:85 

first  approach  to  Polynesia,  appeared  arrayed  in  her  native 
purity."* 

Conspicuous  as  a  leader  among  these  celebrated  missionaries, 
whose  praise  is  still  in  all  Protestant  churches,  was  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Lewis.  It  was  this  gentleman  who  was  chosen  by  hie 
colleagues  as  their  "  first  moderator,"f  and  who  presided' both 
at  their  periodical  devotions,  and  in  the  daily  selection  and  ex- 
position of  Scripture  texts.  Such  a  distinction  appropriately 
attested  the  rare  merits  of  the  future  missionary,  and  in  the 
discharge  of  these  grave  duties  he  wore  out  the  voyage,  amid 
the  applause  of  his  companions.  Arrived  at  length  in  Tahiti, 
he  justified  after  this  manner  their  good  opinion.  "  For  some 
time,"  says  the  Rev.  Dr.  Brown,  "  his  behavior  towards  the 
Tahitian  females  had  been  extremely  indecent  ;"J  and  this  was 
only  the  beginning  of  evil,  for  a  little  later,  as  Mr.  Ellis,  a  well- 
known  missionary,  adds,  "  Mr.  Lewis  intimated  to  his  com- 
panions his  intention  of  uniting  in  marriage  with  a  native  of 
the  island.  Considering  her  an  idolatress,"  his  companions 
protested  against  the  proposed  nuptials  ;§  and  when  the  "  first 
moderator,"  defying  their  remonstrance,  had  espoused  a  pagan 
savage,  their  Sunday  journal  records  his  apparition  at  chapel  in 
these  reproachful  words  :  "  Mr.  Lewis  and  woman  attended  the 
service.'  Finally,  he  perished,  apparently  by  the  hand  of  his 
heathen  relatives,  being  found  lying  on  his  face,  with  his  skull 
cleft  asunder. 

The  next  of  this  famous  company  is  the  Rev.  Mr.  Broomhall. 
He,  too,  was  a  '•  shining  light"  among  his  fellows,  great  in  the 
interpretation  of  Scripture,  and  had  been  for  some  time,  Mr. 
Ellis  says,  "  highly  serviceable  to  the  mission."!  When  Mr. 
Lewis  lapsed,  he  was  foremost  in  addressing  to  him  the  most 
solemn  admonitions.  Unfortunately,  he  also,  in  spite  of  his 
eminent  qualities,  as  Dr.  Smith  relates,  "successively  connected 
himself  with  two  Otaheitan  females,  and  with  one  of  them  he 
continued  to  cohabit  till  he  quitted  the  island."T  Before  his 
departure,  we  learn  from  the  same  Protestant  historian,  "  he 
seemed  entirely  devoted  to  the  principles  of  infidelity ;"  and 
his  companions  observe  in  their  journal,  forwarded  to  the  mis- 
sionary society  at  home,  that  "  the  state  of  Mr.  Broomhall's 


*  Maritime  Discovery  and  Christian  Missions,  by  John  Campbell,  D.  D. ;  ch. 
vii.,  p.  260. 

f  Missionary  Voyage  to  the  South  Sea,  ch.  y.,  p.  46. 

i  History  of  tJie  Propagation  of  Christianity,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  125. 

£  Polynesian  Researches,  by  the  Rev.  William  Ellis,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv., 
p.  95. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  103. 

1  History  of  tJie  Missionary  Societies,  vol.  ii.,  p.  56. 


4:86  CHAPTER  VI. 

mind  is  very  awful ;  he  professes  himself  no  Christian,  neither 
desires  to  be  one."* 

The  third  in  dignity  of  this  too  celebrated  troop,  whose 
evangelical  triumphs  have  been  so  often  the  theme  of  missionary 
orations  in  England  and  America,  and  are  still  eulogized  with 
enthusiasm  by  English  writers,  was  the  Rev.  Mr.  Veeson.  He 
also,  though  able  to  manipulate  texts  as  skilfully  as  his  friends, 
"  cohabited  with  one  of  the  Tonga  women,"  as  Dr.  Brown  re- 
lates ;  then  began  "  mingling  with  the  heathen,  and  showing 
a  strong  disposition  to  learn  their  ways,  in  which  he  at  length 
made  a  woful  proficiency,  and  threw  off  the  mask  of  Christian- 
ity completely."! 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Harris,  another  of  these  earliest  "  heralds"  of 
English  Protestantism,  who  introduced  Christianity  to  Polynesia 
"  in  her  native  purity,"  is  thus  described  by  Dr.  Russell.  "  It 
was  manifest  that  he  had  become  paralyzed  by  fear,  his  ardor 
quenched,  and  his  firmness  shaken."  And  these  were  not  his 
only  infirmities.  "He  expressed  his  deep  disgust  with  the  food 
and  other  matters."  Finally,  after  "  the  frightened  missionary 
had  been  on  the  beach  all  night,"  the  people  of  the  ship  went 
to  his  aid,  and  "  found  him  in  a  most  lamentable  condition,  and 
almost  deprived  of  intellect."! 

The  Rev.  Francis  Oakes,  who  appears  to  have  also  travelled 
in  the  Duff,  "  left  the  island  a  twelvemonth  after,"  we  learn 
from  Dr.  Lang,  "  in  consequence  of  some  hostile  demonstration 
of  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  natives,  and  settled  as  chief  con- 
stable at  Parramatta."§ 

Finally,  of  eleven  missionaries,  who  seem  to  have  reached 
New  Zealand,  from  which  they  again  fled  for  fear  of  the  natives, 
we  are  told  by  Dr.  Smith,  an  eager  partisan,  that  "  instead  of 
achieving  any  thing  for  the  honor  of  the  Gospel,  some  of  them 
afforded  melancholy  proof  that  Otaheite  would  not  have  been 
eventually  benefited  by  their  continuance  in  that  island."! 

Such,  by  the  testimony  of  Protestant  annalists,  were  the 
passengers  by  the  ship  Duff,  and  such  the  expedition  "fraught 
with  a  promise"  which  casts  even  the  crusades  into  dim  shadow. 
And  it  is  of  such  men  that  English  clergymen  and  English 
reviewers  could  deliberately  speak,  a  quarter  of  a  century  after 
their  crimes  and  their  apostasy,  as  "  godly  men,"  busy  with 
"manifestations  of  pious  zeal,"  and  generous  benefactors  of 
their  race. 

*  Otdlwitan  Journals,  quoted  in  Missionary  Transactions,  vol.  i.,  p.  184. 
f  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  200. 

$  Polynesia  and  New  Zealand,  by  the  Right  Rev.  M.  Russell,  ch.  v.,  p.  186. 
Cf.  Farming's  Voyages  round  the  World,  ch.  x.,  p.  131. 
§  History  of  N.  8.  Wales,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  103. 
I  Vol.  ii.,  p.  41. 


MISSIONS   IN    OCEANICA.  487 

But  this  is  only  the  first  scene  in  the  Protestant  missions  of 
Oceanica;  we  shall  find  others  quite  as  worthy  of  our  atten- 
tion, for  they  have  the  faculty  of  reproducing  themselves,  in 
the  later  history  of  the  Society  Islands,  and  especially  in 
Tahiti,  the  chief  member  of  the  group.  That  history  we  will 
now  examine,  as  it  has  been  unfolded  by  Protestant  witnesses. 

Captain  Laplace,  the  commander  of  the  French  frigate  Arte- 
mise,  who  visited  almost  all  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  noticed, 
iu  1853,  that  "the  Methodist  ministers  have  never  dared  to 
attempt  the  conversion  of  the  frightful  and  sanguinary  tribes 
of  .New  Caledonia,  New  Hebrides,  New  Guinea,"  &c.  These 
formidable  disciples  they  preferred  to  abandon  to  missionaries 
of  another  faith,  who,  as  the  same  distinguished  officer  testifies, 
"have  courageously  ventured  into  the  midst  of  them,  and 
pursue  their  work  with  success  at  this  moment,  chiefly  in  New 
Caledonia,  where  they  already  count  a  considerable  number  of 
neophytes,  whose  habits  they  have  succeeded  in  changing  to 
an  astonishing  degree."* 

The  Protestants,  however,  chose  more  tranquil  fields  of  labor, 
and  selected  for  their  first  operations  an  island  which  is  thus 
described  by  Mr.  Herman  Melville.  "The  ineffable  repose  and 
beauty  of  the  landscape  is  such,  that  every  object  strikes  a 
European  like  something  seen  in  a  dream ;  and  for  a  time  he 
almost  refuses  to  believe  that  scenes  like  these  should  have  a 
commonplace  existence. "f  Long  before  this  writer  visited 
Tahiti,  De  Bougainville,  who  noticed  with  admiration  "the 
mild  behavior  of  the  natives,"  had  been  "delighted  with  the 
beauty  of  its  hills  and  valleys,  the  verdure  of  its  swelling 
acclivities,  the  cool  shades  afforded  by  its  groves,  and  the 
pleasant  associations  connected  with  its  grassy  "plains  and  mur- 
muring rivulets."  And,  once  more,  De  La  Richarderie  bore 
witness,  more  than  sixty  years  ago,  to  that  "sweetness  of  man- 
ner and  benevolence  of  disposition "+  which  all  the  earlier 
navigators  attest  with  one  accord,  but  of  which  every  vestige 
has  long  since  disappeared.  The  vices  which  now  make  Tahiti 
a  proverb — theft,  drunkenness,  cruelty,  lying,  covetousness,  and 
fraud — all  date,  as  their  own  friends  will  presently  tell  us,  from 
the  arrival  of  the  Protestant  missionaries,  and  were  almost 
unknown  at  an  earlier  period. 

It  was  to  a  gentle  and  winning  race,  inhabiting  one  of  the 
fairest  regions  of  the  earth,  that  the  emissaries  of  the  English 
missionary  societies  first  presented  themselves,  in  the  guise  ot 

*  Gampagne  de  Circumnavigation  de  la  Fregate  I'Artemise,  tome  v.,  ch.  iv., 
p.  425. 

|  Omoo,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  66. 
;  JBibliatheqite  UniverseUe  des  Voyages,  tome  vi.,  p.  370. 


488  CHAPTER  VI. 

apostles,  charged  with  a  message  from  Heaven.  The  first  effect 
of  their  presence,  as  we  have  seen,  was  to  introduce  shameless 
incontinence,  and  to  teach  the  natives  how  easy  it  was  even 
for  its  preachers  to  apostatize  from  Christianity;  the  second, 
as  they  themselves  confess,  was  to  destroy  forever  the  peace 
which  their  presence  disturbed,  and  to  kindle  the  flames 
of  merciless  wars  in  every  grove  and  valley  which  they 
visited. 

"It  is  a  very  remarkable  fact,"  says  the  missionary  Williams, 
unconsciously  pronouncing  sentence  upon  himself  and  his  com- 
panions, "  that  in  no  island  of  importance  has  Christianity  been 
introduced  without  a  war."*  His  own  "converts,"  he  admits, 
"  acted  with  great  cruelty  towards  their  enemies,  hewing  them 
in  pieces  while  they  were  begging  for  mercy."  Already  they 
had  become  cruel  and  sanguinary,  and  the  most  impartial 
witnesses  affirm  that  it  was  the  missionaries  who  made  them  so. 
"The  new  religion,"  says  Yon  Kotzebue,  "vft&f&rcMy  estab- 
lished, and  whoever  would  not  adopt  it  put  to  death.  With 
the  zeal  for  making  proselytes,  the  rage  of  tigers  took  posses- 
sion of  a  people  once  so  gentle."  And  presently  he  adds,  "  the 
bloody  persecution  instigated  by  the  missionaries  performed 
the  office  of  a  desolating  infection. "f  And  again,  "  ambition 
associated  itself  to  fanaticism." 

And  this  is  confirmed  in  1845  by  the  American  Commodore 
Wilkes,  a  disinterested  but  anti-Catholic  witness,  who  says  that 
a  war  which  he  found  raging  at  Tongataboo  was  a  "religious 
contest,"  promoted  by  the  missionaries.  In  vain  he  remon- 
strated against  their  proceedings.  "  I  was  much  surprised  and 
struck,"  he  says,  "  with  the  indifference  with  which  Mr.  Rabone 
spoke  of  the  war.  He  was  evidently  more  inclined  to  have  it 
continue  than  desirous  that  it  should  be  put  a  stop  to  ;  viewing 
it,  in  fact,  as  a  means  of  propagating  the  gospel !  I  had  little 
hopes  of  being  instrumental  in  bringing  about  a  peace, 
when  such  unchristian  views  existed  where  it  was  least  to  be 
expected."^: 

Catholic  missionaries,  in  all  lands,  have  been  accustomed  to 
offer  the  sacrifice  of  their  own  lives,  but  have  never  assisted  in 
taking  away  life  from  others.  When  we  come  to  speak  of 
America,  we  shall  find  instances  of  Protestant  "missionaries" 
actually  slaying  the  heathen  with  their  own  hands,  and  exulting 
in  the  fact ;  meanwhile,  let  it  be  noted  that  in  the  Pacific,  as 
Williams  admits,  Protestantism  has  nowhere  been  introduced 

*  Narrative  of  Missionary  ^Enterprises  in  the  S.  Sea  Islands,  by  the  Rev.  John 
Williams,  ch.  xii.,  p.  49. 


f  Kotzebue's  New  Voyage  Round  the  World,  vol.  i.,  pp.  159,  169  (1830). 


United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  12. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA. 

"  without  a  war."  This  is  the  first  mark  by  which  it  may  be 
known. 

And  how,  it  is  natural  to  inquire,  were  the  natives  of  Tahiti 
induced  to  profess  a  religion  introduced  by  such  teachers, 
and  which  they  were  encouraged  to  propagate  by  such  means  ? 
Mr.  Williams,  who  was  a  principal  agent  in  these  proceedings, 
will  tell  us.  "Some  thought  that  by  embracing  Christianity, 
vessels  would  be  induced  to  visit  them;  many  hoped  by  adopt- 
ing the  new  religion  to  prolong  their  lives."  And  then  he 
quotes  the  speech  of  one  of  their  chiefs,  who  thus  recommended 
the  English  religion  to  his  people:  "Look  at  the  wisdom  01 
these  worshippers  of  Jehovah,  and  see  how  superior  they  are 
to  us  in  every  respect.  Their  ships  are  like  floating  houses, 
so  that  they  can  traverse  the  tempest-driven  ocean  for  months 
with  perfect  safety ;  whereas,  if  a  breeze  blow  upon  our  canoes, 
they  are  in  an  instant  upset,  and  we  are  sprawling  in  the  sea. 
Their  persons  are  covered  from  head  to  foot  in  beautiful  clothes, 
while  we  wear  nothing  but  a  girdle  of  leaves.  Their  knives 
too,  what  valuable  things  they  are !  how  quickly  they  cut  up 
our  pigs,  compared  with  our  bamboo  knives !  Now  I  conclude 
that  God,  who  has  given  to  his  white  worshippers  these  valua- 
ble things,  must  be  wiser  than  our  gods,  for  they  have  not  given 
the  like  to  us.  We  all  want  these  articles ;  and  my  proposition 
is,  that  the  God  who  gave  them  should  be  our  God."*  It  was 
impossible  to  reason  more  sagaciously ;  and  having  come  to 
this  conclusion,  they  eagerly  agreed  to  assist  the  missionaries 
in  forcing  all  the  other  tribes  to  adopt  a  religion  which  im- 
parted to  its  happy  votaries  such  beautiful  clothes,  and  such 
excellent  knives. 

But  this  point  deserves  further  illustration.  "When  Pomare 
embraced  Christianity,"  says  Lord  Waldegrave,  "the  whole 
island,  in  obedience  to  his  will,  adopted  the  Christian  religion. 
It  was,  however,  only  a  state  conversion  not  understood,  and 
therefore  not  sincere."t  "The  truth  is,"  says  Dr.  Russell, 
"the  chiefs  had  already  perceived  so  many  temporal  advantages 
connected  with  Christianity,  that  they  became  desirous,  on 
secular  grounds  alone,  to  extend  its  principles  among  their  de- 
pendants ;"  and  he  quotes  the  ingenious  letter  of  Pomare  the 
Second  to  the  London  Missionary  Society,  in  which,  after  asking 
for  a  supply  of  missionaries,  that  acute  monarch  added, — 
"  Friends,  send  also  property,  and  cloth  for  us,  and  we  also 
will  adopt  English  customs."!  Mr.  Stewart,  an  American  mis- 
sionary, tells  us  of  another  Polynesian  sovereign,  who  urged 

*  Narrative,  &c.,  ch.  xxxii.,  p.  149. 
Journal  of  the  Geographical  Society,  vol.  iii.,  p.  182. 
Polynesia  and  New  Zealand,  ch.  iv.,  p.  151. 


4:90  CHAPTER  VI. 

the  President  of  the  United  States  to  send  emissaries  to  her 
dominions,  because  "  our  harbors  are  good,  and  our  refresh- 
ments abundant."*  Lastly,  Mr.  Cargill,  also  a  missionary, 
relates,  that  having  asked  a  chief  if  he  believed  what  he  said 
was  true, — "  True !  every  thing  is  true  that  comes  from  the 
white  man's  country :  muskets,  and  guns,  and  powder,  are 
true,  and  the  religion  must  be  true."f 

The  Protestant  missionaries  were  now  definitively  established 
in  Tahiti.  From  that  hour,  during  many  successive  years,  such 
accounts  of  their  uninterrupted  success  were  forwarded  to  Eng- 
land as  might  well  stimulate  the  hopes  and  sympathies  of  their 
supporters.  Idolatry,  they  reported,  had  given  way  before 
them ;  and  so  great  was  the  devotion  of  their  disciples,  as  the 
missionary  records  annually  testified,  that  Tahiti  became  a 
watchword  among  all  the  advocates  of  missionary  enterprise. 
"  Our  congregations  increase,"  said  the  Rev.  Mr.  Osmund,  as 
late  as  1842,  "and  many  are  pressing  into  our  churches.  For 
goodness  of  temper,  general  moral  conduct,  correct  scriptural 
knowledge,  decided  attachment  to  the  gospel,  and,  in  the  aggre- 
gate, pleasing  consistency  as  church  members,  I  am  bold  to  say 
that  they  are  fit  to  be  placed  on  a  footing  with  any  equal  num- 
ber of  professing  Christians,  in  any  church,  in  any  part  of  the 
world. "J  Every  word  of  this  statement  should  be  carefully 
weighed,  for  it  was  the  common  language  of  the  missionaries 
in  all  the  letters  which  they  addressed  to  the  society  at  home. 
How  far  it  was  justified  by  facts,  including  their  own  secret 
confessions,  we  shall  learn  presently. 

Dr.  Russell,  in  his  account  of  the  Polynesian  missions,  ob- 
served nearly  twenty  years  ago,  as  if  anticipating  the  disclosures 
which  would  one  day  reach  -Europe,  "It  is  almost  inseparable 
from  the  duties  of  an  uninspired  missionary  to  exaggerate  the 
amount  of  his  success."  Already,  even  in  his  time,  the  unwel- 
come truth  was  beginning  to  be  revealed.  "An  impression  has 
been  very  generally  produced,"  he  reluctantly  admits,  "that  the 
European  teachers  have  to  answer  for  more  evil  than  will  ever 
be  compensated  by  their  most  zealous  services.*'!  Let  us  now 
review  the  facts  which  created  this  gloomy  impression,  and  we 
must  receive  them  exclusively  from  Protestant  witnesses,  since 
no  other  testimony  would  suffice  to  prove  them.  We  will 
follow,  as  in  former  instances,  the  order  of  dates,  which  range 
through  a  period  of  thirty  years,  from  1829  to  1859. 

*  A  Visit  to  the  8.  Seas  in  tfie  U.  8.  Ship  Vincennes,  by  C.  S.  Stewart,  A.  M., 
vol.  ii.,  letter  vii..  p.  50. 

f  Dr.  Brown,  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  i.,  p.  542. 
±  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  185. 
§  Ch.  iii.,  p.  113. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  491 

Our  first  witness  is  the  Rev.  William  Ellis,  a  Protestant 
clergyman,  well  known  by  his  various  writings  on  China, 
Polynesia,  and  Madagascar.  Mr.  Ellis  considers  the  Catholic 
religion  "  one  of  the  most  absurd  and  fatal  delusions  which  the 
powers  of  darkness  ever  invented  for  the  destruction  of  man- 
kind." This  is  his  deliberate  estimate  of  the  religion  which, — 
to  say  nothing  of  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Francis,  St.  Bernard  and 
St.  Philip, — was  preached  in  later  times  by  Bossuet  and  Fene- 
lon ;  admitted  to  be  divine  by  Pascal,  Leibnitz,  and  Grotius ; 
and  which  has  captivated  in  our  own  age  the  intellect  and  the 
affections  of  such  men  as  Stolberg  and  Schlegel,  Galitzin  and 
Schouvaloff,  Hurter  and  Overbeck,  Yogel  and  Schadow,  Tieck 
and  Werner,  Newman  and  Faber.  But  Mr.  Ellis  has  decided 
that  it  is  an  absurd  delusion. 

Mr.  Ellis  visited  Tahiti.  Speaking  of  the  beneficial  influence 
of  his  own  presence  in  that  island,  he  says :  "  With  what  aug- 
mented joy  must  that  honored  and  distinguished  saint,  the  late 
Countess  of  Huntingdon,  in  strict  obedience  to  whose  last  be- 
quest and  dying  charge  the  South  Sea  Mission  was  attempted, 
have  viewed  the  pleasing  change."*  We  are,  of  course,  not 
acquainted  with  the  feelings  of  that  amiable  lady ;  but  if  her 
contemplation  embraced  the  proceedings  of  the  missionaries 
who  travelled  in  the  ship  Daft',  and  who  inaugurated  the  mis- 
sion in  which  she  felt  so  much  interest,  we  may  perhaps  doubt 
whether  her  joy  was  sensibly  augmented.  But  let  us  examine 
more  closely  Mr.  Ellis's  own  operations,  and  endeavor  to  learn 
from  his  published  statements  what  he  considers  the  true 
method  of  evangelizing  the  heathen. 

"  We  instructed  them,"  he  tells  us,  "  not  to  consider  bap- 
tism as  possessing  any  saving  efficacy,  or  conferring  any  spirit- 
ual benefit,  but  being  on  our  parts  a  duty  connected  with  our 
office,  and  on  theirs  a  public  declaration  of  discipleship."f  So 
much  for  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism. 

"  We  felt  no  hesitation,"  he  adds,  speaking  of  the  "  Lord's 
Supper,"  in  using  the  roasted  or  baked  bread-fruit,  pieces  of 
which  were  placed  in  the  proper  vessel."  And  again :  "  We 
have  sometimes  been  apprehensive  that  we  might  be  under  the 
necessity  of  substituting  the  juice  of  the  cocoa-nut  for  that  of 
the  grape," — which  he  confesses  some  of  his  colleagues  actually 
did.J  This  Protestant  missionary  may  certainly  boast  that  he 
has  effectually  sequestrated  the  only  two  sacraments  which  his 
Church  had  retained.  Whether  it  is  lawful  for  men  thus  to 
suppress  the  ordinances  of  God,  and  to  substitute  for  His 

*  Polynesian  Researches,  ch.  x.,  p.  261. 
f  Ch.  ix.,  p.  256. 
t  Ch.  xi,  p.  309. 


492  CHAPTER  VI. 

sacraments  new  inventions  of  their  own,  Mr.  Ellis  would  prob- 
ably consider  a  trivial  inquiry.* 

Having  thus  dealt  with  the  sacraments  of  Baptism  and  the 
Holy  Eucharist,  this  clergyman  next  proceeded  to  abolish  all 
creeds.  "We  did  not."  he  says,  "present  any  creed  or  articles 
of  faith  for  their  subscription."  Perhaps  some  may  be  tempted 
to  ask,  the  sacraments  and  creeds  being  now  blotted  out,  what 
portions  of  Christianity  Mr.  Ellis  had  reserved  from  the  com- 
mon destruction  ?  This  question  we  are  unable  to  answer.  He 
tells  us,  indeed,  that  "in  the  strict  observance  of  the  Sabbath 
theTahitian  resembled  the  Jewish  more  perhaps  than  the  Chris- 
tian Sabbath,"  which  he  may  possibly  have  considered  an 
adequate  substitute  for  sacraments  and  articles  of  faith ;  but 
we  search  his  book  in  vain  for  any  definite  account  of  what  he 
actually  taught  the  people  of  Tahiti. 

We  learn  from  it,  however,  much  more  distinctly  what  he 
thought  of  the  position  of  a  missionary  in  such  a  land.  "  The 
only  earthly  solace,"  Mr.  Ellis  observes,  "  which  a  missionary 
enjoys  among  an  uncivilized  people,  except  what  he  derives 
from  his  work,  is  found  in  the  social  endearments  of  the  domes- 
tic circle."  And  again:  "The  greatest  trials  the  missionaries 
experience  are  those  connected  with  the  bringing  up  of  a  family. 
...  he  experiences  a  constant  and  painful  struggle  between 
the  dictates  of  parental  affection  and  the  claims  of  pastoral  care."f 
"He  is  divided"  said  St.  Paul,  alluding  to  this  very  perplexity  ; 
and  that  sublime  missionary  thus  warned  all  who  would  give 
their  whole  hearts  to  God  against  this  very  snare :  "  I  would 
have  you  to  be  without  solicitude.  He  that  is  without  a  wife, 
is  solicitous  for  the  things  that  belong  to  the  Lord,  how  he  may 
please  God.  But  he  that  is  with  a  wife,  is  solicitous  for  the 
things  of  the  world,  how  he  may  please  his  wife :  and  he  is 
divided.";]:  Mr.  Ellis  seems  to  have  felt  the  inconvenience  of  this 
position,  which  indeed  ultimately  deprived  the  Tahiti-axis  of  his 
presence  ;  for  "  the  severe  and  protracted  illness  of  Mrs.  Ellis" 
sent  them  home,  though  he  had  protested  twenty  times  in  the 

*  Many  years  later,  an  Anglican  bishop,  of  the  High  Church  school,  not  only 
committed  the  same  act,  but  claimed  credit  for  doing  it.  Dr.  Hobhouse, 
Anglican  bishop  of  Nelson,  in  New  Zealand,  relates  with  much  complacency, 
that  wishing  to  give  the  Sacrament  to  a  dying  native,  and  finding  neither 
bread  nor  wine,  he  acted  as  follows  :  "  I  therefore  made  vessels  of  the  beauti- 
ful mussel  shells  which  abound  on  the  sea-beach,  filling  one  with  water,  and 
laying  on  the  other  a  piece  of  travelling  biscuit,  and  in  this  way  I  proceeded  to 
celebrate,"  &c.  His  words  were  quoted  by  one  of  his  own  clergy,  at  a  meeting 
at  Oxford,  as  worthy  of  admiration.  He  probably  thought  that  men  who  had 
made  a  Church  were  quite  as  able  to  make  a  Sacrament.  Oxford  Herald; 
quoted  in  Weekly  Register,  Nov.  15, 1862. 

f  Ch.  xviii.,  pp.  542-4. 

%  1  Cor.  vii.,  33. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  493 

course  of  his  book  that  nothing  should  ever  separate  him  from 
this  field  of  labor, — he  lived  to  visit  many  others,  and  to  write 
a  book  on  each  of  them, — and  so  he  adds,  with  infinite  com- 
posure, "  We  took  our  final  leave  of  the  Polynesian  islands,  and 
the  interesting  people  by  whom  they  are  inhabited."  To  what 
extent  the  people  had  profited  by  his  abode  amongst  them  we 
shall  learn  more  satisfactorily  from  other  witnesses,  who  will 
assist  us,  in  the  words  of  Professor  Merivale,  "  to  correct  the 
coloring  of  Mr.  Ellis."* 

The  very  year  after  Mr.  Ellis  published  his  book,  Yon 
Kotzebue,  an  intelligent  and  perfectly  impartial  authority, 
thus  described,  from  actual  observation,  the  religion  of  Tahiti : 
"The  religion  taught  by  the  missionaries  is  not  true  Christian- 
ity, though  it  may  possibly  comprehend  some  of  its  doctrines, 
but  half  understood  even  by  the  teachers  themselves.  A  re- 
ligion which  consists  in  the  eternal  repetition  of  prescribed 
prayers,  which  forbids  every  innocent  pleasure,  and  cramps  or 
annihilates  every  mental  power,  is  a  libel  on  the  Divine 
Founder  of  Christianity."  And  then  this  celebrated  navigator 
gives  a  description  of  the  dark  and  tyrannical  system  under 
which  the  natives  of  Tahiti  were  already  groaning  at  the  time 
of  his  visit,  and  by  which  they  were  crushed  till  the  happy  in- 
terference of  France  released  them  from  their  bondage.  u  By 
order  of  the  missionaries,"  he  says,  "  the  flute,  which  once 
awakened  innocent  pleasure,  is  heard  no  more.  One  of  our 
friends  having  begun  to  sing  for  joy  over  a  present  he  had  re- 
ceived, was  immediately  asked  by  his  comrades,  with  great 
terror,  what  he  thought  would  be  the  consequence,  should  the 
missionaries  hear  of  it  ?"  "  The  oppressed  people,"  he  adds, 
and  many  witnesses  confirm  the  fact,  "  even  suiter  themselves 
to  be  driven  to  prayers  by  the  cudgel."  His  final  impression 
he  records  in  these  grave  words :  "  The  religion  of  the  mission- 
aries has  neither  tended  to  enlighten  the  Tahitians,  nor  to 
render  them  happy."  On  the  other  hand,  "  each  missionary 
possesses  a  piece  of  land,  cultivated  by  the  natives,  which  pro- 
duces him  in  superfluity  all  that  he  requires."*)* 

In  1830,  we  have  the  evidence  of  a  gentleman  well  known 
for  the  energy  of  his  religious  opinions,  Captain,  afterwards 
Lord  "Waldegrave.  "The  missionaries,"  he  reports,  after  much 
personal  observation,  a  are  all  engaged  in  trade,  which  I  am 
afraid  interferes  in  some  degree  with  their  usefulness.  At  pres- 
ent they  have  the  monopoly  of  cattle,  so  that  the  shipping  are 
almost  wholly  supplied  with  fresh  beef  by  them.  They  also 

*  Lectures  on  Colonization,  &c.,  by  Herman  Merivale,  A.  M.,  Professor  of 
Political  Economy,  Lecture  xix.,  p.  561. 
t  Voyage  Round  the  World,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  173-203. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

appeared  to  deal  in  cocoa-nut  oil  and  arrow-root."  Of  their 
converts,  this  ardent  Protestant  cautiously  confesses,  "  the 
tenets  of  the  Gospel  have  not  in  many  taken  deep  root."* 

The  next  year,  1831,  gives  us  another  witness  of  the  same 
class,  having,  like  Lord  Waldegrave,  no  motive  whatever  but 
to  tell  the  truth.  Captain  Beechey  disclaims  any  but  a  friendly 
feeling  towards  the  English  missionaries,  but  says  he  "  felt 
himself  called  upon  to  declare  the  truth,"  and  not  to  "  increase 
the  general  misconception"  created  by  missionary  reports.  The 
natives,  he  reports,  like  those  of  New  Zealand,  had  already 
learned  the  vice  of  covetousness,  and  were  accustomed  to  sell 
false  pearls,  "  ingeniously  made  out  of  an  oyster-shell,"  and  to 
exult  in  the  success  of  their  fraud.  "  Without  amusement,  and 
excessively  indolent,  they  now  seek  enjoyment  in  idleness  and 
sensuality."  The  Tiokeans,  he  reports,  "  are  still  reputed  to  be 
cannibals,  notwithstanding  they  have  embraced  the  Christian 
religion."  He  shows  also  that  the  violent  suppression  of  all 
innocent  amusements,  which  marked  this  strange  form  of 
Christianity,  extended  even  to  the  king's  household.  He  was 
present  at  an  entertainment  given  in  his  honor  by  Pomare,  of 
whom  we  shall  hear  more  presently,  but  "  it  was  necessary  that 
the  vivo,  or  reed  pipe,  should  be  played  in  an  under  tone,  that 
it  might  not  reach  the  ears  of  an  aava,  or  policeman,  who  was 
parading  the  beach,  in  a  soldier's  jacket,  with  a  rusty  sword  ; 
for  even  the  use  of  this  melodious  little  instrument,  the  delight 
of  the  natives,  from  whose  nature  the  dance  and  the  pipe  are 
inseparable,  is  now  strictly  prohibited  !"f  Of  the  other  islands 
of  the  Pacific,  Captain  Beechey  gives  a  similar  account,  as  we 
shall  see  when  we  come  to  speak  of  them. 

In  the  same  year,  the  Protestant  author  of  the  Mutiny  of  the 
Bounty  thus  speaks  of  the  natives  of  Tahiti.  After  describing 
with  admiration  their  earlier  character,  before  the  missionaries 
had  visited  them,  he  says :  "  What  they  now  are  it  is  lamentable 
to  reflect !  All  their  usual  and  innocent  amusements  have  been 
denounced  by  the  missionaries,  and,  in  lieu  of  them,  these  poor 
people  have  been  driven  to  seek  for  resources  in  habits  of  indo- 
lence and  apathy  ;  that  simplicity  of  character  which  atoned 
for  many  of  their  faults,  has  been  converted  into  cunning  and 
hypocrisy  ;  and  drunkenness,  poverty,  and  disease  have  thinned 
*the  island  of  its  former  population  to  a  frightful  degree."  And 
then  he  shows,  "  on  the  authority  of  a  census  taken  by  the  mis- 
sionaries," that  in  thirty  years  the  population  had  dwindled  to 
less  than  one-third !  And  even  this  was  probably  too  favorable 

*  Journal  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  vol.  iii.,  p.  180. 
f  Beechey's  Voyage  to  the  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  286-307. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCKANICA.  495 

an  account,  for  whereas  Bligh  reports  that  "  the  inhabitants  of 
Otaheite  have  been  estimated  at  above  one  hundred  thousand,"* 
Lord  Waldegrave  reduced  this  estimate,  in  1830,  to  five 
thousand. 

What  follows  is  still  more  impressive.  "All  the  smiling 
cottages  and  little  plantations  of  the  natives  are  now  destroyed, 
and  the  remnant  of  the  population  has  crept  down  (from  the 
fertile  grounds)  to  the  flats  and  swampy  ground  on  the  sea-shore, 
completely  subservient  to  the  seven  establishments  of  mission- 
aries^ who  have  taken  from  t/ieni  what  little  trade  they^  used  to 
carry  on,  to  possess  themselves  of  it  /  who  have  their  ware- 
houses, act  as  agents,  and  monopolize  all  the  cattle  on  the 
island."  A  few  years  later  we  shall  find  the  very  society 
which  employed  them  admitting  these  facts.  Well  might  this 
author  add,  "  How  much  is  such  a  change,  brought  about  by 
such  conduct,  to  be  deprecated !  How  lamentable  is  it  to  re- 
flect, that  an  island  on  which  nature  has  lavished  so  many  of 
her  bounteous  gifts,  should  be  doomed  to  such  a  fate  !"f 

It  was  now  the  turn  of  the  Tahitians  to  enjoy  the  advantages 
which  everywhere  attend  the  presence  of  ^Protestant  mission- 
aries. In  China,  as  Mr.  Sirr  has  told  us,  they  augment  their 
incomes  by  diligently  "  attending  auctions ;"  in  India,  as  a 
crowd  of  witnesses  relate,  "  their  cry  is  only,  4  money ;' "  in 
Ceylon,  they  rejoice  in  " spacious  lawns,"  "handsome  country 
houses,"  and  "  social  meetings ;"  in  the  Antipodes  they  deal  in 
land  and  provisions ;  in  Tahiti,  they  cheat  the  poor  natives  of 
their  humble  commerce  "to  possess  themselves  of  it," — and  it 
is  from  their  companions  and  advocates  that  we  learn  these 
facts.  Let  us  continue  their  history. 

Once  more,  in  the  same  year,  a  celebrated  writer,  reviewing 
Captain  Beechey's  work,  thus  appreciated  the  influence  of  the 
missionaries  in  Tahiti.  "  Unhappily,  in  eradicating  idolatry, 
the  missionaries,  from  whatever  cause,  have  failed  to  substitute 
any  better  principles  in  its  stead ;  and  the  only  effect  of  the 
change  produced  has  been  to  degrade  Christianity  to  the  level 
of  the  most  brutish  idolatry,  without  making  one  step  towards 
raising  these  miserable  idolaters  to  the  rank  of  Christians.  The 
people,  consequently,  are  as  much  barbarians  and  savages  as 
ever — or  rather,  they  are  worse,  for  they  have  borrowed  from 
civilization  nothing  but  the  vices  by  which  it  is  dishonored. "J 

In  the  next  year,  1832,  a  writer  in  the  Asiatic  Journal,  com- 
paring the  public  and  official  reports  of  the  missionaries  with 
their  private  confessions,  thus  discloses  the  want  of  harmony 

*  Bligh's  Voyage  to  the  South  Sea,  ch.  vi.,  p.  80. 

f  History  of  the  Mutiny  of  the  Bounty,  ch.  i.,  pp.  37-39. 

\  Edinburgh  Review,  No.  53,  p.  217. 


496  CHAPTER  VI. 

between  the  two.  "As  a  proof  of  what  the  missionaries  them- 
selves really  think  of  the  Otaheitans,  I  will  give  you  an  extract 
of  a  letter  written  by  them  to  a  friend  of  mine.  'The  Pitcairn 
islanders  are  arrived,  but  I  am  afraid  their  morals  will  soon  be 
corrupted  5y  the  OtaheitansJ  "* — whom  Mr.  Osmund,  it  will 
be  remembered,  described,  in  an  official  report  designed  to 
attract  fresh  subscriptions,  as  models  of  "  general  moral  conduct, 
correct  scriptural  knowledge,  and  decided  attachment  to  the 
gospel."  The  same  writer  adds  the  characteristic  fact,  that  up 
to  that  year,  1832,  "more  than  one  hundred  thousand  pounds 
sterling  has  been  expended  on  the  missions  to  the  Society 
islands  " — that  is  to  say,  on  the  missionaries  and  their  families. 

In  1834-,  the  London  Missionary  Society,  unable  to  conceal 
the  fatal  evidence  which  was  now  multiplying  on  all  sides, 
confess  at  last  in  their  annual  report,  "The  tidings  which  have 
been  received  by  late  arrivals  have  been  more  unfavorable  than 
any."f  And  in  1835,  Mr.  Williams,  whose  career  shall  be 
noticed  presently,  and  whose  accounts  of  triumphant  progress 
had  exactly  resembled  that  which  has  been  quoted  from  Mr. 
Osmund,  thus  writes  to  the  directors  of  the  same  society, 
"  Although  it  would  be  much  more  pleasant  to  myself  to  state 
that  the  former  prosperity  continued,  this  is  not  my  happiness 
on  the  present  occasion."  All  that  he  ventures  to  add,  by  way 
of  apology,  is,  that  "in  all  the  lamentable  defections  from 
Christian  doctrine  and  purity  which  have  taken  place  among 
us,  I  have  never  heard  of  one  individual  who  has  even  thought 
of  returning  to  the  worship  of  their  former  gods."^: 

The  official  reports  of  the  missionaries  were  now  beginning 
to  agree  with  their  private  confessions,  and  with  the  voluntary 
testimony  of  more  independent  witnesses.  The  fact  that  the 
backsliding  natives  did  not  renew  the  worship  of  their  wooden 
gods  was  but  a  feeble  consolation  ;  for,  as  the  historian  of  Prot- 
estant missions  observes,  "  the  truth  appears  to  be,  that  in  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  idolatry  had  a  very  slight  hold  on 
the  minds  of  the  natives  ;"§  and  another  writer  declares  the 
Barne  thing  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  where  "  idolatry  had,  as  if 
by  miracle,  given  way,  even  before  the  coming  of  the  mission. "| 

The  well-known  work  of  the  Rev.  John  Williams,  of  which 
the  thirty-fifth  edition  was  published  in  1841,  now  claims  our 
attention.  Mr.  Williams  lost  his  life  in  one  of  the  islands  of 

*  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  viii.,  p.  107. 

f  Report  of  London  Missionary  Society,  1834 ;  in  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xiv., 
p.  196. 

\  Quoted  in  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xviii.,  p.  115.    New  Series. 

§  Dr.  Brown,  vol.  ii.,  p.  218. 

j  Voyage  of  H.  M.  8.  Blonde  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  by  Captain  Lord  Byron, 
p.  147. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  497 

the  Pacific,  and  has  been  regarded  by  his  admirers  as  a  martyr. 
His  evidence,  on  several  accounts,  deserves  particular  consider- 
ation. 

We  have  already  learned  from  him,  that  the  form  of  Chris- 
tianity which  he  taught  was  not  introduced  into  any  of  the 
islands  "  without  a  war."  He  next  admits  that  polygamy  was 
sanctioned  by  the  missionaries,  even  while  legislating  for  its 
suppression.  They  had  admonished  their  polygamist  "  con- 
verts" to  select  one  of  their  wives,  to  whom  they  should  be 
united  formally  by  a  religious  ceremony.  The  injunction  was 
apparently  obeyed ;  but  when,  at  a  later  period,  the  natives 
repented  of  their  first  choice,  urging,  as  Mr.  Williams  reports, 
that  "  had  they  known  it  to  be  permanent,  they  should  have 
made  a  different  selection,"*  they  were  considerately  allowed 
to  choose  again, — a  license  which  would  somewhat  obscure 
their  apprehension  of  the  sanctity  of  Christian  marriage. 

Of  the  real  character  of  the  nominal  converts,  Mr.  Williams, 
towards  the  close  of  his  career,  furnishes  an  accurate  estimate, 
though  not  very  consistent  with  his  own  earlier  reports.  Thus 
he  had  described  Rarotonga,  at  least  twenty  times,  as  a  kind 
of  Paradise,  and  its  inhabitants  as  model  Christians ;  yet  he 
confesses,  in  his  book,  that  "  as  vast  numbers  of  those  who 
professed  Christianity  were  influenced  by  example  merely,  no 
sooner  had  the  powerful  excitement  produced  by  the  transition 
from  one  state  of  society  to  another  subsided,  than  they  returned 
to  the  habits  in  which,  from  their  infancy,  they  had  been  trained." 
Of  the  converts  of  *  the  whole  Hervey  Island  group,"  he  says, 
"  I  do  not  assert,  I  would  not  intimate,  that  all  the  people  are 
real  Christians;-5  and  of  another  group,  "  I  by  no  means  affirm 
that  many,  or  even  that  any,  of  the  Samoans  had  experienced  a 
change  of  heart."f  It  is  only  to  be  regretted  that  these  con- 
fessions were  delayed  until  they  were  extorted  by  the  unexpect- 
ed revelations  of  others. 

But  there  were  some  converts  whom  Mr.  Williams  was  un- 
willing to  include  in  the  general  catalogue,  and  of  these  King 
Pom  are  was  the  most  conspicuous.  Mr.  Williams  was  his  friend 
in  life,  and  attended  him  on  his  death-bed.  "  I  confidently 
hope,"  he  says,  "  that  he  was  a  subject  of  Divine  grace ;"  in 
deed,  he  was  quite  sure  of  it,  for  he  adds,  "I  visited  him  in  his 
last  illness,  and  found  his  views  of  the  way  of  salvation  clear 
and  distinct." 

Unfortunately,  however,  the  reports  of  more  impartial  wit 
nesses  do  not  permit  us  to  share  the  cheerful  conviction  ex- 

*  Narrative,  &c.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  35. 
f  Ch.  xxxii. 

33 


498  CHAPTER    VI. 

pressed  by  Mr.  Williams.  "  Pomare  was  the  first  convert  to 
Christianity,"  Mr.  Ellis  says,  "  in  the  island  of  which  he  was 

king During  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  his  conduct  was 

in  many  respects  exceptionable ;"  which  means,  as  Mr.  Ellis 
goes  on  to  remark,  that  he  had  "  habits  of  intemperance,  and 
was  also  reported  to  be  addicted  to  other  vices."*  On  the  other 
hand,  this  writer  assures  us,  in  the  peculiar  phraseology  of  his 
class,  that  Pornare  "was  not  averse  to  devotional  engagements, 
and  gave  a  steady  patronage  to  the  missionaries." 

But  we  must  endeavor  to  arrive  at  a  more  exact  knowledge 
of  the  real  character  of  this  "  subject  of  Divine  grace." 
"  Their  zealous  king,"  Dr.  Russell  tells  us,  "  was  not  the  only 
native  of  Otaheite  whose  conscience  permitted  him  to  combine 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  with  a  relaxed  code  of  morals."  "  He 
was  as  dexterous  a  thief,"  says  Mr.  Turnbull,  "  as  any  amongst 
them ;''  and  yet  he  declares  that  "  the  Otaheitans  are  thieves 
in  every  sense  of  the  word."f  The  examples  which  he  gives 
of  Pornare's  "  relaxed  code  of  morals"  do  not  certainly  encour- 
age a  high  opinion  of  that  royal  personage.  But  let  us  pursue 
our  investigation.  "  The  chiefs,"  says  the  Hon.  Frederick 
Walpole,  who  had  been  their  guest,  "  were  too  powerful  a  body 
to  be  touched  by  the  missionaries  who  framed  the  laws ;  so  as 
they,  the  missionaries,  only  owed  their  existence  to  them,  they 
allowed  them  to  retain  many  of  their  old  savage  privileges," 
including,  as  it  appears  from  his  graphic  account,  lewdness, 
theft,  and  drunkenness.^  Lord  Waldegrave  also,  after  describ- 
ing the  house  of  this  "  subject  of  Divine  grace"  as  one  of  those 
unclean  stews  for  which  language  has  no  name,  or  only  one 
which  cannot  be  employed,  adds,  "Pomare,  the  king,  sat  in 
the  room,  a  witness  of,  and  indifferent  to:  the  addresses  paid  to 
his  wife,  or  the  open  debauchery  of  his  mother-in-law.'  §  On 
the  whole,  we  are  induced  rather  to  hope  than  to  believe  that 
the  real  character  of  Pomare  justified  the  sanguine  estimate  of 
Mr.  Williams.  His  "  views"  may  have  been  excellent,  but  his 
morals  were  detestable. 

But  it  is  time  to  leave  this  gentleman — not,  however,  without 
adding  a  word  upon  the  manner  of  his  death.  It  is  true  that 
Mr.  Williams  was  killed  by  the  natives,  as  Captain  Cook  had 
been ;  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  compassionate  his  dismal  end, 
when  we  are  informed,  that  he  was  not  only  struck  down  in 
the  prime  of  life,  but  that  "  his  body  was  roasted  and  eaten."! 

*  Polynesian  Researches,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xviii.,  pp.  532-4. 
f  TurnbulTs  Voyage  Round  the  World,  ch.  xi.,  pp.  281-3. 
j:  Four  Years  in  the  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  245  (1849). 
§  Journal,  &c.,  ubi  supra. 

§  Incidents  and  Adventures  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  by  Thomas  Jefferson 
Jacobs,  ch.  xxvi.,  p.  235  (New  York,  1844). 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  4:99 

Yet  history,  while  it  deplores  his  melancholy  fate,  can  never 
admit  his  claim  to  the  title  of  "martyr."  If  this  unfortunate 
gentleman,  by  his  own  or  his  children's  act,  provoked  the  just 
reprisals  of  men  whom  they  had  cruelly  injured  and  robbed, 
the  frightful  penalty  may  inspire  sorrow  and  regret,  but  noth- 
ing more.  Mr.  Williams  had  been  conspicuous  amongst  those 
who,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Leigtch  Ritchie,  "  are  said  to  have 
usurped  many  of  the  functions  of  government,  and  to  have 
taken  advantage  of  their  position  to  obtain  an  undue  share  pf 
trade  ;"*  or  as  another  writer  expresses  it,  he  was  one  of  the 
missionaries  "  who  are  determined  to  get  the  whole  commerce 
into  their  own  hands."f  He  had  even  been  publicly  and  offi- 
cially censured  by  the  very  society  which  employed  him  for 
his  own  share  in  such  transactions,  and  especially  for  his  traffic 
in  South  Sea  tobacco.  He  was  "  largely  engaged,"  says  Arch- 
deacon Grant,  "in  private  speculations ;"J  and  Mr.  Ebenezer 
Prout,  his  enthusiastic  biographer,  who  seems  almost  disposed 
to  defend  even  this  incident  in  his  life,  says,  "  Mr.  "Williams 
received  a  letter  from  the  directors,  in  which  his  speculation 
was  condemned,  and  his  conduct  censured.  But  his  spirit, 
though  bowed  down,  was  not  broken. "§ 

In  1841,  the  same  directors  were  obliged  to  acknowledge  that 
"some  of  the  missionaries  have  from  time  to  time  been  exten- 
sively engaged  in  mercantile  transactions,  and  the  practice, 
besides  lowering  the  general  tone  and  character  of  the  mission, 
has,  we  fear,  frequently  brought  them  into  invidious  and  de- 
grading competition  with  their  own  people,  whose  interests 
happened  to  be  embarked  in  the  same  line  of  traffic."!  And  in 
all  these  proceedings  poor  Williams  appears  to  have  been  fatally 
compromised.  To  augment  his  own  fortune  and  that  of  his 
children  had  long  been  his  chief  concern.  Commodore  Wilkes 
reports  that  he  visited  "  the  tiny  ship-yard  of  his  son,  Mr.  John 
Williams,  who  was  taken  by  his  father  to  England,  and  there 
taught  all  the  mechanical  trades  ....  By  the  aid  of  a  few 
natives  he  has  already  built  himself  a  vessel  about  twenty-five 
tons  burden,  which  he  proposes  to  employ  in  trading  among 
these  islands.r*[  And  Mr.  Walpole  throws  more  light  on  this 
sad  story,  when  he  tells  us,  that  "the  son  of  a  missionary  at 
Tahiti  fitted  out  a  brig,  armed  her,  and,  assisted  by  a  number  of 
natives  of  Borabora,  made  a  descent  on  one  of  the  Fegee  islands, 

*  The  British  World  in  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  416. 
'  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  viii.,  p.  106. 

Bampton  Lectures,  Lect.  vii.,  p.  239. 

Life  of  the  Rev.  John  Williams,  ch.  iv.,  p.  194. 

Quoted  by  Dr.  Brown,  vol.  ii.,  p.  184. 
U.  8.  Exploring  Expedition,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  93. 


500  CHAPTER  VI. 

drove  the  people  into  the  mountains,  cut  down  all  their  sandal- 
wood,  burnt  their  villages,  and  made  off."*  Whether  this  man, 
who,  it  is  added,  "  now  enjoys  a  capital  position  at  Tahiti," 
was  the  son  of  Williams,  is  not  distinctly  stated ;  but  we  have 
heard  quite  enough  to  explain  the  tragic  fate  of  the  solitary 
**  martyr"  of  Protestant  missions.  St.  Austin  once  noticed  the 
claims  of  a  martyr  of  the  same  class,  but  contented  himself 
with  saying  to  his  admirers,  "  Et  cum  vivatis  ut  latrones,  mori 
vox  jactatis  ut  martyr  e$"\ 

liesuming  now  the  course  of  our  narrative,  we  come  to  the 
evidence  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Brown,  the  Protestant  annalist  of 
missions  to  the  heathen.  In  September,  1843,  the  Rev.  William 
Day,  he  tells  us,  admitted  "  the  unchanged  hearts,  after  the 
lapse  of  ten  years,  and  unaltered  lives,  of  many  who  have 
attached  themselves  to  our  ministry."  This  tardy  confession 
relates  to  Upolu.  Of  his  colleagues  generally,  Dr.  Brown  saysy 
as  if  he  felt  that  it  was  useless  to  deny  it  any  longer,  "  We 
apprehend  that  the  religion  of  their  converts  is  often  very  su- 
perficial, and  is  not  even  founded  in  any  proper  knowledge  of 
the  principles  of  the  Gospel."  Even  the  directors,  he  adds, 
"  express  in  successive  reports  unfavorable  views  in  regard  to 
the  moral  and  religious  condition  of  the  people ;  and  it  is  very 
unlikely  they  would  do  so  on  insufficient  grounds."^; 

Nothing,  in  truth,  could  be  more  unlikely,  seeing  that  they 
had  continued  to  publish,  as  long  as  it  was  possible  to  conceal 
the  truth,  such  reports  as  those  of  Mr.  Osmund.  The  Rev. 
William  Orme,  foreign  secretary  to  the  London  Missionary 
Society,  had  himself  circulated  an  account  of  these  missions,  in 
order  to  obtain  additional  funds,  which,  but  for  its  irreverence 
and  puerility  of  language,  might  have  been  a  description  of  the 
primitive  saints  and  martyrs.  Dr.  Brown  might  well  call  it  a 
"  painful "  exaggeration ;  and  Mr.  Tirnkin,  a  missionary  in  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  had  the  courage  to  confess,  that  it  was  u  a 
picture  of  the  South  Sea  mission  for  which  there  is  no  original 
in  the  Pacific,  and  in  our  judgment  will  not  be  for  a  century 
to  come."§ 

Dr.  Brown  also  speaks  of  the  entrance  of  Catholic  missionaries 
into  these  islands,  to  which  we  shall  refer  immediately,  and 
avows  his  own  decided  opinion,  that  Louis  Philippe  was  de- 
throned by  the  Divine  anger  because  he  sent  them  to  Tahiti — 
an  account  of  that  prince's  downfall  which  we  may  venture  to 

*  Four  Years,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  289. 

f  Contra  Litteras  Petttian,  lib.  2,  Opp.  tome  ix.,  p.  481. 

i  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  ii.,  p.  183. 

|  Ibid.,  p.  191. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANIC  A.  501 

reject,  since  the  whole  influence  of  his  policy  was  directed 
against,  arid  not  in  favor  of  religion. 

In  1840,  we  have  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Bennett,  an  English 
naturalist,  and  an  apologist,  as  far  as  truth  would  permit,  of 
the  missionaries.  "  The  latter,"  he  says,  "  speak  of  the  native 
character  in  terms  of  severe  reprobation."  We  have  seen,  how- 
ever, that  in  their  public  reports  they  spoke  of  it  with  admira- 
tion. And  then  he  describes  the  actual  state  of  Tahiti,  where 
he  saw  "  scenes  of  riot  and  debauchery  that  would  have  dis- 
graced the  most  profligate  purlieus  of  London.  It  was  vain  to 
attempt  to  recognize,  in  the  slovenly,  haggard,  and  diseased 
inhabitants  of  the  port,  the  prepossessing  figure  of  the  Tahitian, 
as  pictured  by  Cook!" 

Mr.  Bennett  appears  to  have  been  as  much  struck  with  the 
prosperity  of  the  missionaries  as  with  the  squalid  misery  of 
their  disciples.  Their  "  tastefully  furnished  dwellings"  attracted 
his  notice,  as  also  the  fact  that  "  the  principal  sugar  plantations 
at  Tahiti  are  those  belonging  to  Messrs.  Bicknell,  Henry,  and 
Pritchard" — all  missionaries. 

Of  Raiatea,  one  of  the  Society  Islands,  where  Williams  re- 
sided "  for  many  years,"  he  gives  this  account :  Chastity  was 
unknown,  "either  in  the  single  or  the  married  state;"  not  "even 
the  most  devout  members  of  the  church"  having  any  respect  for 
that  particular  virtue.  "  The  worst  effects  of  debauchery,"  he 
adds,  were  apparent  on  every  side.  We  shall  hereafter  find  the 
same  witness  celebrating  the  "  modesty"  and  other  graces  of 
Catholic  converts  of  exactly  the  same  class.*  It  should  be  added, 
that  twenty-two  years  later,  far  from  recording  any  improve- 
ment in  the  state  of  Raiatea,  the  London  Missionary  Society, 
admonished  by  lay  witnesses  to  confess  the  whole  truth,  pub- 
lish, in  soothing  and  melodious  phrase,  this  significant  report : 
"  Our  aged  brother,  the  Rev.  George  Platt,  has  to  lament  that 
the  people  at  large  do  not  appear  adequately  to  appreciate  the 
religious  privileges  they  have  so  long  possessed."! 

In  1841,  Mr.  Francis  Olmsted  reports,  that  u  Tahiti  is  far 
behind  any  of  the  Hawaiian  islands  in  industry,  knowledge  of 
government,  and  religion,";):  Yet  the  latter,  as  we  shall  learn 
in  due  time,  are  in  a  sufficiently  deplorable  condition. 

In  1842,  the  very  year  in  which  Mr.  Osmund  depicted  the 
extraordinary  virtues  which  raised  the  Tahitians  to  a  level  with 
u  professing  Christians  in  any  part  of  the  world,"  we  have  an 
account  of  these  regions  by  Mr.  Daniel  Wheeler,  an  American 

*  Narrative  of  a  WluMng  Voyage,  by  F.  Debell  Bennett,  Esq.,  P.  E.G.  Sv 
vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  pp.  81,  87 ;  ch.  iv.,  p.  109  :  ch.  vii.,  p.  220 ;  ch.  xi.,  p.  350. 
f  Report  for  1862,  p.  49. 
j  Incidents  of  a  Whaling  Voyage,  by  Francis  Olmsted,  ch.  xxvi.,  p.  312. 


502  CHAPTER  VI. 

philanthropist,  and  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  He 
was  also  an  occasional  preacher,  and  we  could  not  desire  a  more 
valuable  or  unexceptionable  witness.  His  evidence  is  perfectly 
conclusive.  "There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  in  Tahitian  habits 
more  striking  or  pitiable  than  their  aimless,  nerveless,  mode  of 
spending  life."  "Certainly,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "appearances, 
as  to  the  religious  state  of  the  community,  are  unpromising ; 
and  however  unwilling  to  adopt  such  a  conclusion,  there  is 
reason  to  apprehend  that  Christian  principle  is  a  great  rarity."* 

Mr.  Wheeler  was  not  the  salaried  officer  of  a  missionary  so- 
ciety, and  having  no  fear  of  resentful  "  directors,"  could  afford 
to  speak  truthfully.  Of  Rarotonga,  which  Mr.  Williams  once 
described  in  such  glowing  colors,  he  reports:  "Out  of  the 
whole  population  of  the  island,  I  understand  not  more  than  one 
hundredth  part  are  regularly  initiated  into  church  member- 
ship, "f  Of  Eimeo,  he  says,  "  The  same  compulsory  system 
which  obtains  in  Tahiti  insures  for  the  present  in  Eimeo  an  ex- 
ternal attention  to  the  services  of  the  chapel,  but  the  very 
existence  of  this  detestable  regulation  indicates  unsoundnes&. 
The  fact  that  the  poor  native  is  subjected  to  a  penalty  if  he 
absents  himself  from  the  chapel,  and  the  sight  of  a  man  with  a 
stick  ransacking  the  villages  for  worshippers  before  the  hour  of 
service, — a  spectacle  we  have  often  witnessed, — are  so  utterly 
abhorrent  to  our  notions  that  I  cannot  revert  to  the  subject 
without  feelings  of  regret  and  disgnst."J 

In  1845,  Mr.  Wilkes,  also  an  American  Protestant,  affirms, 
that  "  in  spite  of  the  devotion  manifested  within  the  church,  the 
conduct  of  the  women  after  the  service  was  concluded,  left  room 
for  believing  that  their  former  licentiousness  was  not  entirely 
overcome  by  the  influence  of  their  new  religion."  He  notices,  too, 
the  exorbitant  cupidity  of  the  native  traders,  and  that  the  mis- 
sionaries, in  spite  of  their  official  encomiums  upon  their  flocks, 
"  bring  up  their  own  children  to  look  down  upon  them."  "  I 
no  longer  wondered,"  Mr.  Wilkes  forcibly  remarks,  "  at  the 
character,  which  I  was  compelled  by  a  regard  for  truth  to  give, 
of  the  children  of  missionary  parents  in  Tahiti."  Speaking  of 
the  Paumotu  group,  he  says  that  even  the  catechists  employed 
by  the  missionaries  "  are  ignorant  of  most  of  the  duties  enjoined 
upon  a  Christian,"§ — and  yet  thinks  they  may  be  usefully  em- 
ployed I  From  him  also  we  learn  the  unscrupulous  mendacity 
of  the  official  reports  of  the  missionaries,  as  proved  by  their 
private  confessions.  "The  missionaries  are  far  from  overrating 

*  Memoirs  of  Danid  'Wheeler,  app.,  p.  757. 

f  P.  778. 

j  P.  763. 

§  U.  8.  Exploring  Expedition,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  328. 


MISSIONS   IN  OCEAN1CA.  503 

their  success,"  he  observes  ;  "  so  far  from  this,  I  found  that  they 
generally  complained  that  sincere  piety  was  rarely  to  be  found 
among  the  natives."  Yet  we  know  in  what  terms  they  habit- 
ually described  them  in  their  letters  to  England.  What  this 
gentleman  says  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  we  shall  hear  at 
the  end  of  this  chapter. 

In  1847,  another  American  writer,  Mr.  Herman  Melville,  re- 
ports, that  "  the  hypocrisy  in  matters  of  religion,  so  apparent 
in  all  Polynesian  converts,  is  most  injudiciously  nourished  in 
Tahiti."  He  also  remarked,  like  Mr.  Wilkes,  that  the  mission- 
aries kept  their  children  aloof  from  the  natives,  from  fear  of 
contamination  ;  "and  yet,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  depravity 
among  the  Polynesians,  which  renders  precautions  like  these 
necessary,  was  in  a  measure  unknown  before  their  intercourse 
with  the  whites."*  The  examples  of  Mr.  Lewis,  Mr.  Broom- 
hall,  and  the  other  English  missionaries  of  the  ship  Duff,  were 
surely  not  unlikely  to  produce  such  results.  If  the  natives 
had  now  become  incurably  immoral,  they  might  at  least  plead 
the  example  of  their  Christian  teachers. 

In  the  same  year,  Dr.  Coulter,  an  English  physician,  after  a 
second  visit  to  this  unfortunate  island,  says,  "  I  found  Tahiti 
much  as  I  left  it.  There  was  only  one  difference,  and  that 
was,  the  natives  were  evidently  fast  breaking  through  their 
missionary  and  temperance  laws."f 

In  1849,  we  have  two  witnesses,  Mr.  Pridham,  who  prefers 
Buddhism  to  the  Catholic  religion,  and  Mr.  Walpole.  The 
former  gentleman  assures  us  that  "too  many"  of  the  mission- 
aries in  the  Pacific,  as  well  as  in  the  West  Indies  and  South 
Africa,  "  have  deemed  a  sordid  greed  and  agrarian  acquisitive- 
ness, audacious  exaggeration  and  the  vilest  hypocrisy,  impudent 
meddling  and  vulgar  insolence,  to  be  necessary  components  of 
the  missionary  character;"  and  that  they  "added  by  their  own 
presence  a  plague  to  the  evils  they  had  come  to  cure."J  The 
latter,  more  temperate  in  form,  though  equally  emphatic  in 
substance,  writes  as  follows :  "  On  the  missionaries  it  is  dan- 
gerous to  touch  ;  but  with  all  humility  I  would  beg  they  might 
be  first  examined  at  home,  to  see  if  the  preacher  is  fitted  for 
his  task.  .  .  .  And  let -them  not  relate  to  the  world  such  very 
exaggerated  stories  of  hardships  and  dangers  :  the  untruth  of 
these  makes  many  doubt  the  truth  of  any  part  of  the  account." 
Of  the  results  of  their  work  he  gives  this  account :  "  It  is  sad, 
as  the  eye  rests  on  the  scanty  congregation  which  now  fills  the 
churches,  to  think  how  all  the  good  they  did  is  passing  away ; 

*  Omoo,  ch.  xlvi.,  p.  177 ;  ch.  xlviii.,  p.  187. 

f  Adventures  on  the  Western  Coast  of  South  America,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  369 

$  Ceylon,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  444. 


504:  CHAPTER  VI. 

v«  .  that  faults  and  errors  mainly  brought  this  about  may 
hardly  with  justice  be  denied."  Presently  he  adds,  "  Nothing 
remains  but  many,  alas !  of  the  vices  of  civilization,  and  most 
of  the  follies  of  the  savage.  .  .  .  Day  by  day  the  missionary 
loses  his  hold ;  he  has  no  longer  temporal  power  to  back  hie 
precepts."* 

Yet  there  was  a  time — a  period  of  many  years^ — when  these 
men  exercised  supreme  influence  over  the  natives,  and  declared 
to  them  all  which  they  themselves  knew  of  the  Christian 
religion.  Dr.  Smith  tells  us  that  they  had  a  chapel  in  Tahiti 
of  such  dimensions  that  they  used  to  preach  from  three  pulpits 
simultaneously,  "Brother  Henry  occupied  the  east  pulpit,  and 
preached  from," — no  matter  what;  "Brother  "Wilson,  in  the 
middle  pulpit,  preached  from — ;  Brother  Bicknell,  in  the  west 
pulpit,  preached  from — ."f  And  this  was  the  end  of  all  the 
preachings  of  Ellis,  and  Williams,  and  Wilson,  and  fifty  more. 
The  Catholics  came,  freedom  was  given  to  the  native,  and 
straightway  the  chapel,  into  which  the  Tahitians  had  so  often 
been  driven  by  the  scourge,  became  a  desert. 

Let  us  hear  Mr.  Walpole  once  more.  "The  missionaries 
were  beginning  to  feel  much  straitened ;  already  the  effects  of 
the  opposition  were  sadly  operating  ;  their  mission  at  Papawa 
was  deserted /  and  the  house  was  empty,  save  Pomare  the 
First's  chair,  which  was  stored  up — as  a  relic,  I  suppose." 
Lastly,  that  we  may  not  omit  all  allusion  to  the  special  charac- 
teristic of  Protestant  missions,  Mr.  Walpole  tells  us  of  the 
Samoan  group,  "As  every  variety  of  Dissenters  exists  among 
the  teachers,  some  confusion  must  occur  in  the  but  half- 
awakened  mind  of  the  savage,  as  one  sect  succeeds  another  at 
the  different  missionary  stations. "$ 

And  as  time  progressed,  the  witnesses  still  continue  unani- 
mous in  their  reports.  In  1851, — for  we  are  approaching 
the  end  of  the  history, — Dr.  Lang,  himself  a  missionary,  thus 
describes  his  brethren  in  Polynesia.  "Missionaries  who  had 
been  sent  forth  with  the  prayers  of  the  British  public,  and  the 
benediction  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  to  convert  the 
heathen  in  the  numerous  isles  of  the  Pacific,  were  at  length 
found  converted  themselves  into  stars  of  the  fourth  or  fifth 
magnitude,  in  the  constellations  Aries  and  Taurus ;  or,  in  other 
words,  in  the  sheep  and  cattle  market  of  ^New  South  Wales. "§ 

In  the  same  year,  the  Rev.  Henry  Cheever,  also  a  missionary, 
though  he  lauds  in  other  places  both  himself  and  his  order,  in 

i 

*  Four  Years  in  tlie  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  cla.  vii.,  p.  162 ;  ch.  v.,  p.  84. 

f  Hist.  Miss.  Societies,  vol.  ii.,  p.  77. 

i  Ch.  xvi.,  p.  368. 

§  Hist.  JV.  8.  Wales,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  459. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  505 

a  moment  of  forgetfulness  breaks  out  as  follows :  "  Becoming 
missionaries  has  not  made  them  saints,  nor  procured  them  ex- 
emption from  the  ordinary  infirmities  and  peccability  of  men ; 
nor  do  we  find  the  odor  of  sanctity,  nor  that  imaginary  halo 
of  holiness  with  which  certain  memoirs  have  surrounded  the 
missionary's  person  arid  office."* 

In  1853,  Captain  Erskine,  though  a  warm  advocate  of  the 
missionaries,  notices  with  indignation  their  intolerable  arro- 
gance, and  "  dictatorial  spirit  towards  the  chiefs  and  people." 
44  One  of  the  missionaries,"  he  says,  "  in  my  presence  sharply 
rebuked  Yuke,  a  man  of  high  rank  in  his  own  country,  for 
presuming  to  speak  to  him  in  a  standing  posture  !"f  And 
lastly,  in  1855,  Mr.  D'Ewes  still  repeats  what  so  many  equally 
impartial  witnesses  had  avouched  before  him,  "  The  native 
Christian  population,  except  in  name  and  outward  observances, 
know  little  of  the  real  spirit  of  Christianity."^ 

In  the  presence  of  facts  attested,  during  so  many  years,  by 
Protestant  writers,  we  are  prepared  for  the  following  account  of 
Captain  Laplace.  After  expressing  his  astonishment  at  finding 
that  the  missionaries  still  possessed  "the  finest  houses,  the  best 
estates,  extensive  coffee  and  sugar  plantations,  as  wrell  as  the 
monopoly  of  all  the  trade  with  Europe,"  that  officer  thus 
describes  his  impression  of  the  actual  condition  of  the  natives. 
"  These  people,  formerly  so  gay,  so  happy,  and  so  clean,  and  at 
the  same  time  so  generous  towards  strangers,  have  become 

floomy,  dirty,  brutalized,  cheats,  and  liars.  Such  is  the  con- 
ition  to  which,  with  whatever  good  intentions,  the  Protestant 
missionaries  have  reduced  Tahiti  and  its  interesting  popula- 
tion.'^ And  with  this  testimony  we  may  close  the  series,  offer- 
ing no  other  commentary  than  the  unwilling  confession  which 
has  been  already  quoted  from  one  of  their  own  professional  ad- 
vocates: "The  European  teachers  have  to  answer  for  more  evil 
than  will  ever  be  compensated  by  their  most  zealous  services." 
We  must  not,  however,  terminate  the  history  of  religion  in 
the  Society  Islands,  and  the  adjoining  groups,  without  a  brief 
allusion  to  the  incidents  which  compose  its  final  chapter — the 
entrance  of  the  Catholic  missionaries,  and  the  fortune  which 
attended  them.  In  Tahiti,  as  in  New  Zealand,  they  disem- 
barked on  a  hostile  shore  and  it  was  not  from  the  heathen,  but 


*  The  Island  World  of  the  Pacific,  by  the  Rev.  Henry  T.  Cheever,  cli.  vi., 
p.  135. 

f  The  Islands  of  the  Western  Pacific,  by  John  Elphinstone  Erskine,  Capt. 
R.N.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  131. 

£  China,  Australia,  and  the  Pacific  Islands,  by  J.  D'Ewes,  Esq.,  ch.  v.,  p.  144 
(1857). 

§  Gampagne  de  VArtemise,  tome  v.,  p.  389. 


506  CHAPTER  VI. 

from  their  Christian  rulers,  that  they  received  the  first  blow. 
However  cold  the  reception  which  had  greeted  them  in  the 
Antipodes,  however  arduous  the  trials  prepared  for  them,  they 
had  at  least  nothing  to  apprehend  from  actual  violence.  In 
New  Zealand  there  was  a  responsible  government,  guided  by 
the  inflexible  maxims  of  European  polity,  and  which,  though 
irritated  and  unfriendly,  would  neither  delegate  its  office  to 
others,  nor  tolerate  in  subordinates  an  unprofitable  tyranny  of 
which  the  ignominy  would  have  recoiled  upon  itself.  In  Tahiti, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  missionaries  were  both  the  founders  and 
the  administrators  of  the  civil  government.  The  power  which 
had  crushed  the  natives,  and  stamped  out  their  national  life — 
which  had  robbed  them  of  their  possessions,  decimated  them 
by  war,  and  instructed  them  in  new  forms  of  lubricity  and 
fraud — was  not  likely  to  spare  defenceless  strangers,  whose 
very  presence  was  at  once  a  reproach  for  the  past  and  a 
menace  for  the  future.  How  the  missionary  merchants  of 
Tahiti  confronted  the  new  enemy,  and  what  was  the  final  issue 
of  the  combat,  we  shall  now  learn  from  the  same  impartial 
witnesses  who  have  already  been  quoted. 

The  first  Catholic  missionaries,  who,  fortunately  for  the  prog- 
ress of  religion  in  Tahiti,  were  subjects  of  a  nation  which  does 
not  suffer  its  citizens  to  be  outraged  with  impunity,  belonged 
to  France.  They  had  scarcely  landed  when  they  were  seized, 
as  Captain  Laplace  relates  with  an  indignation  which  was  both 
Christian  and  patriotic,  flung  on  board  a  small  vessel,  and  driven 
out  to  sea  without  even  the  clothes  and  provisions  necessary  for 
the  voyage  which  they  were  forced  to  undertake.  But  we  must 
not  leave  such  facts  to  the  testimony  of  a  Catholic  witness, 
however  honorable  and  trustworthy.  American  Protestants, 
who  speak  from  personal  knowledge  of  all  the  details,  will 
describe  to  us  this  singular  warfare.  "  Invariably  treated  with 
contumely,"  says  Mr.  Herman  Melville,  in  1847,  "they  some- 
times met  with  open  violence ;  and,  in  every  case,  were  ultimate- 
ly forced  to  depart ;  and  finally  carried  aboard  a  small  trading 
schooner,  which  eventually  put  them  ashore  at  Wallis  Island,  a 
savage  place,  some  two  thousand  miles  to  the  westward!  Now, 
that  the  resident  English  missionaries  authorized  the  banish- 
ment of  these  priests,  is  a  fact  undenied  by  themselves.  I  was 
also  repeatedly  informed,  that  by  their  inflammatory  harangues 
they  instigated  the  riots  which  preceded  the  sailing  of  the 
schooner.  Melancholy  as  such  an  example  of  intolerance  on 
the  part  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  must  appear,  it  is  not 
the  only  one,  and  by  no  means  the  most  flagrant,  which  might 
be  presented."* 

*  Omoo,  ch.  xxxii.,  p.  124. 


ITISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  507 

"We  shall  see,  indeed,  worse  cases  presently,  confessed  by  the 
missionaries  themselves.  The  Rev.  Walter  Lawry,  one  of  their 
number,  whose  proceedings  as  a  usurer  and  general  dealer  in 
N~ew  Zealand  have  been  described  to  us  by  his  own  companions, 
but  who  was  gravely  styled  in  missionary  reports  "  the  Patriarch 
of  the  Pacific,"  reveals  the  feeling  which  inspired  them  all. 
"  This  people,"  he  says,  speaking  of  Tonga,  "might  be  moulded 
to  any  thing  at  present," — we  have  seen  what  the  unhappy  people 
of  Tahiti  had  been  "  moulded  to"  by  the  same  hands — u  but  if 
a  Romish  priest  should  land  there,  what  will  become  of  our  £air 
blossoms?"  And  presently  he  cries  out,  "  May  it  please  the  Lord 
to  preserve  this  field  from  the  Roman  '  boar  out  of  the  wood !'  "* 
The  prayer  of  the  usurer  was  not  destined  to  be  heard ;  and 
Commodore  Wilkes,  who  mentions  examples  of  the  barbarity  of 
Mr.  Lawry 's  colleagues,  records  with  regret  the  inevitable  effect, 
that  "  their  intolerance  caused  much  remark  among  the  natives 
themselves,"  and  no  doubt  hastened  the  rapid  desertion  of  which 
the  first  symptoms  coincided  with  the  arrival  of  the  Catholic 
missionaries,  and  the  introduction  of  a  new  era  of  freedom  and 
peace. 

But  the  honest  disgust  of  the  natives  was  not  the  only  result 
of  these  proceedings.  u  These  islands,"  says  a  German  Prot- 
estant, "  like  the  Sandwich  group,  have  to  thank  intolerant 
missionaries  for  the  difficulties  they  got  into  with  the  French 
nation — difficulties  that  overthrew  their  whole  policy,  cost  them 
the  independence  of  their  country,  and  brought  death  and 
misery  to  hundreds  of  families."f  It  is  now  a  matter  of  history, 
that  the  imprudent  violence  of  the  missionaries,  blinded  by  a 
mistaken  calculation  of  their  own  commercial  interests,  had  so 
nearly  provoked  a  war  between  England  and  France,  that  only 
the  moderation  of  M.  Guizot,  whose  national  ardor  was  perhaps 
tempered  in  this  case  by  religious  sympathies,  prevented  the 
collision.  Mr.  Pritchard, — the  hero  of  a  contest  in  which  blood 
was  shed,  but,  as  usual,  the  blood  of  the  innocent,  by  whose 
death  the  guilty  were  saved, — seems  to  have  regretted  his  own 
share  in  these  transactions.  He  received  indeed  an  indemnity, 
and  the  rank  of  Consul;  but  we  cannot  speak  harshly  of  one 
who  so  far  repudiated  earlier  faults  as  to  offer  his  own  house, 
at  a  later  period,  as  a  residence  for  the  Catholic  missionaries. 
Fie  had  perhaps  learned,  from  the  events  of  which  he  was  a 
witness,  to  appreciate  them  at  their  real  value. 

We  have  seen  that  the  first  Catholic  missionaries  were  trans- 
ported by  their  merciful  rivals  to  Wallis  Island.  Entering  it  as 

*  Friendly  and  Feejee  Islands,  pp.  19,  95. 

f  Gerstaecker,  Voyage  Hound  the,  World,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  vii.,  p.  255. 


508  CHAPTER  VI. 

fugitives,  they  immediately  commenced  amongst  its  fierce  tribes 
the  apostolate  which  had  been  so  rudely  interrupted,  though 
only  for  a  brief  season,  in  the  milder  region  of  Tahiti.  "The 
Catholic  missionaries  have  commenced  their  good  work,"  says 
Mr.  Wilkes,  "  and  are  reported  to  have  performed  it  effectually." 
He  might  well  say  so,  for  already,  in  his  own  words,  "  they 
have  succeeded  in  gaining  over  half  the  population."*  A  little 
later,  as  we  shall  learn  hereafter,  they  had  converted  every  soul 
in  the  island.  And  this  was  not  the  only  fruit  of  their  forced 
dispersion.  "  While  in  the  Feejee  group,"  says  the  same 
gentleman,  "I  learned  that  a  Catholic  mission  had  already 
been  established,  that  it  was  prospering,  and  that  it  had  already 
been  the  means  of  saving  an  English  vessel  from  capture,  by  a 
timely  notice  to  the  crew."  It  was  thus  that  they  revenged 
themselves  on  their  English  persecutors. 

Meanwhile,  their  rivals,  though  the  day  of  their  downfall  was 
now  at  hand,  continued  inexorable  to  the  last, — that  is,  till  the 
artillery  of  France  was  ringing  in  their  ears,  and  Admiral 
Dupetit  Thouars  had  obtained  "  perfect  equality  for  Catholic 
and  Protestant  missionaries."  Thus  at  Apia,  in  the  Samoan 
group,  they  would  not  even  suffer  the  Catholic  missionaries 
to  land,  but  drove  them  away  at  once,  refusing,  with  their 
accustomed  charity,  even  a  small  supply  of  provisions ;  and 
the  men  whom  they  thus  expelled,  but  who  shortly  after 
found  an  entrance,  are  thus  described  by  an  English  gentleman, 
whose  dislike  of  their  religion  could  not  restrain  a  reluctant 
confession  of  their  virtues.  "  The  priests  at  Faleata,  the  district 
where  they  lived,  were  most  polished,  gentlemanly  men,  spoke 
several  European  languages,  and  displayed  so  high  a  tone  of 
feeling  in  their  conversation,  that  one  felt,  alas !  how,  under 
such  influence,  their  baneful  doctrines  would  spread.  They 
have  already  many  converts,  and  gain  more  daily ;  there  was 
certainly  more  tolerance  and  good  feeling  among  them  than  in 
the  other  mission,  nor  between  the  men  themselves  could  a 
comparison  be  dared '."f 

What  was  the  final  issue  of  the  combat  which  had  already 
passed  through  its  first  phase,  we  shall  see  at  the  end  of  this 
chapter,  not  only  as  respects  the  Society  Islands,  but  all  the 
other  groups  of  Eastern  and  Western  Oceanica.  Meanwhile, 
it  is  pleasant  to  hear  from  Mr.  Walpole,  that  as  soon  as  the 
French  missionaries  had  triumphed  in  Tahiti,  by  obtaining 
permission  to  announce  to  its  afflicted  people  u  the  liberty  where- 
with Christ  has  made  us  free,"  not  only  did  they  attract  "every 

*  Exploring  Expedition,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  149. 
f  Four  Years,  &c.,  cli.  xvi.,  p.  309. 


i 

MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  509 

reverence  and  respect,"  but  all  the  dismal  superstitions  which 
had  hitherto  usurped  the  place  of  true  religion  gave  way  to 
innocent  joy  and  peace.  The  whole  island  seemed  to  celebrate 
its  resurrection  from  the  grave,  and,  in  the  touching  words  of 
Mr.  Walpole,  "  The  native  girls,  no  longer  restrained  by  the 
wholesome  dread  of  the  missionary,  used  to  assemble  and  dance 
in  all  the  joyousness  of  recovered  liberty."  It  is  a  Protestant 
who  describes  this  national  festival  in  honor  of  the  downfall  of 
Protestantism.  How  complete  that  downfall  was  we  learn 
from  the  Rev.  Henry  Cheever,  a  Protestant  missionary,  who 
announces,  in  characteristic  language,  in  the  year  1850,  that 
"  the  roaring  lion  and  raging  bear  of  Frenchism  and  Roman- 
ism have  nearly  devoured  the  Society  Islands" — a  climax  which 
Mr.  Cheever  considers  especially  odious,  on  account  of  the  com- 
paratively limited  commerce  of  the  French  nation.  "There  has 
never  been,"  he  complains,  "  but  one  cargo  of  goods  imported 
from  France  !"*  It  was  intolerable  to  be  defeated  by  people 
who  did  not  even  possess  any  "  goods." 

Eleven  years  after  Mr.  Cheever's  lament  over  the  encroach- 
ments of  "  Frenchism  and  Romanism,"  an  English  Protestant 
visited  Tahiti,  and  thus  records  his  estimate  both  of  Mr.  Cheever 
and  of  his  too  successful  rivals.  Of  the  veracity  of  the  former, 
he  gives  this  curious  example.  Kekuanaoa,  the  father  of  the 
King  of  Hawaii,  had  been  officially  described  by  Mr.  Cheever 
as  "  a  model  of  piety  and  Divine  grace."  "  So  far  from  his 
being  the  immaculate  and  saintly  personage  there  portrayed," 
eays  Mr.  Tilley,  "  he  is  one  of  the  most  jovial  of  the  natives, 
got  up  for  our  entertainment  the  Hula-Hula," — a  licentious 
and  prohibited  native  dance — "  and  paid  us  a  visit  on  Sunday 
morning,  instead  of  going  to  chapel."f  Kekuanaoa  still  figures, 
and  will  no  doubt  continue  to  do  so,  in  Protestant  hagiology. 

Of  Tahiti  itself,  once  the  favorite  domain  of  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries, Mr.  Tilley  says,  "  only  in  one  district  is  there  a 
European  Protestant  minister!"  and  he  predicts  that  there  will 
never  be  another.  All  the  rest,  as  Mr.  Cheever  appears  to  have 
anticipated,  ran  away,  as  soon  as  they  found  that  their  reign  of 
covetousness  and  oppression  was  over,  and  that  henceforth 
44  they  were  to  be  put  on  just  the  same  footing  as  the  Romish 
priests."  "  The  increasing  influence  of  the  Romish  priests,"  is 
once  more  angrily  attested,  in  1862,  by  Mr.  Howe,  the  Protest- 
ant missionary  at  Tahiti,;):  with  such  comments  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, but  with  a  profession  of  entire  resignation.  It  need 

*  Ch.  vi.,  p.  117. 

f  Japan,  the  Amoor,  and  the  Pacific,  &c.,  by  Henry  Arthur  Tilley,  ch.  xvi., 
p.  307  (1861). 
J  Report  of  London  Missionary  Society,  1862,  p.  47. 


510  CHAPTER   VI. 

only  be  added,  that  the  benefits  of  the  French  administration, 
which  contrasts  in  every  point,  and  especially  in  perfect  religious 
toleration,  with  that  of  the  Protestant  missionaries,  are  freely 
recognized  by  this  traveller.  And  whereas  the  women  of  Tahiti, 
the  redemption  of  whose  sex  is  one  of  the  special  glories  of 
Christianity,  but  whom  the  English  missionaries  kept  aloof  even 
from  their  own  children,  were  sunk  in  profligacy  and  apparently 
hopeless  degradation,  the  result  of  their  new  training  has  been, 
that  many  of  them  are  now  married  to  French  settlers,  and 
qualified  for  admission  into  any  grade  of  society.  Some  of  the 
native  ladies,  by  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Tilley,  had  become  re- 
markable for  gentleness,  modesty,  and  refinement,  and  are 
described  by  him  as  "  admirable  specimens  of  the  commingled 
European  and  Tahitian  blood."*  "  The  important  island  of 
Tahiti  is  now,"  says  an  English  Judge,  in  1863,  "  a  French 
settlement,  provision  being  made  for  supplying  the  exigencies 
of  the  Queen,  and  it  contains  what  it  never  would  have  done 
under  her  rule,"  shared  by  Protestant  missionaries,  "  a  civil- 
ised and  prosperous  community"^ 


SANDWICH    ISLANDS. 

Let  us  now  quit  for  a  time  the  Society  Islands,  cross  the 
equator,  and  going  northwards  we  shall  reach  a  group  lying  in 
the  twentieth  parallel  of  north  latitude,  of  which  the  religions 
history  is  still  more  remarkable  than  that  which  has  just  been 
related.  In  the  Sandwich  Islands,  which  we  are  now  to  visit, 
the  same  facts  occur  again,  but  on  a  larger  scale,  and  with  still 
more  impressive  results. 

It  was  in  1820  that  the  American  missions  were  first  estab- 
lished in  these  islands.  As  early  as  1804,  Lisiansky,  the  Rus- 
sian navigator,  noticed  that  the  natives  were  "  extremely 
attached  to  European  customs,"  and  predicted  that  they  were 
ripe  for  European  civilization.^:  "  They  are  actually  inhabit- 
ed," we  are  told  by  Mr.  Caswall,  in  1854-,  "  by  large  numbers 
of  Americans,  and  the  aborigines  are  rapidly  wasting  away.  The 
government  is,  in  fact,  in  the  hands  of  Americans."§  For  forty 
years  they  have  now  ruled  in  the  Hawaiian  group,  with  what 
success  we  shall  soon  learn.  Meanwhile,  let  it  be  observed,  that 
if  they  have  failed,  like  the  English  in  Tahiti,  it  has  not  been 

*  Ch.  xviii.,  p.  341  ;  ch.  xix.,  p.  352. 

f  Reminiscences  of  N.  8.  Wales,&c.,\>j  Judge  Therry,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  308. 

±  Voyage  Round  the  World,  ch.  vii.,  p.  128  (1814). 

§  The  Western  World  Revisited,  ch.  ix.,  p.  257. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  511 

for  want  of  means.  In  1844  they  had  already  seventy-nine 
missionaries  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  had  circulated  nearly 
one  hundred  million  pages  of  printed  matter  in  the  Hawaiian 
tongue.*  In  1853,  the  salaries  alone  which  had  been  paid  to 
the  missionaries  up  to  that  date  amounted  to  more  than  fifty 
thousand  pounds  sterling,  an  expenditure  which  seems  exces- 
sive, but  which  is  perhaps  partly  explained  by  the  fact  that 
"  nine  of  the  mission  families,"  of  which  there  were  forty,  "  num- 
bered fifty-nine  children. "f  The  total  "cost  of  missionary 
enterprise,"  we  are  informed,  exceeded  nine  hundred  thousand 
dollars. +  The  cost  of  a  single  "  deputation  "  from  the  London 
Missionary  Society  to  their  agents  in  the  South  Sea  was  seven 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  twenty  pounds,  though  this  pleas- 
ant expedition  was  described  by  the  missionaries  themselves, 
irritated  by  the  supercilious  vanity  of  these  luxurious  tourists, 
as  only  "a  tour  in  search  of  the  picturesque. "§ 

We  are  -now  to  trace  the  eifect  of  this  enormous  expenditure, 
defrayed  mainly  by  the  generous  contributions  of  the  Ameri- 
can people,  who  have  a  lively  interest  in  Christian  missions, 
display  unbounded  liberality  in  their  support,  and  have  cer- 
tainly a  right  to  ask  how  far  it  has  accomplished  the  end  which 
it  was  designed  to  promote.  But  we  must  first  notice  a  fact, 
anterior  to  the  operations  of  the  American  missionaries,  and 
too  significant,  as  a  presage  of  events  which  occurred  at  a  later 
period,  to  be  altogether  omitted. 

In  1819,  the  year  previous  to  the  arrival  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries,  the  Abbe  de  Quelen,  a  cousin  of  the  Archbishop 
of  Paris,  visited  the  Sandwich  Islands,  on  the  occasion  of  the 
voyage  of  the  French  frigate  Uranie,  of  which  he  was  the 
chaplain.  Among  the  visitors  to  the  frigate  was  the  chief 
minister  of  the  king;  and  this  man,  after  a  conference  with  the 
Abbe,  was  converted  and  baptized.  The  Cross,  therefore,  had 
won  its  first  conquest ;  and  it  is  perhaps  to  this  occurrence  that 
we  may  attribute  the  phenomenon  which  the  American  mis- 
sionaries remarked  with  astonishment, — the  disappearance  of 
idolatry,  "  as  if  by  miracle,"  even  before  they  commenced  their 
labors. 

Mr.  Jarves,  an  American  writer,  who  published  in  1843  a 
history  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  apparently  with  the  sole 
object  of  defaming  the  Catholic  Church,  and  defending  his 
countrymen  from  the  reproaches  which  then  began  to  assail 

*  Religion  in  the  U,  S.  of  America,  by  the  Rev.  Robert  Baird,  book  viii.,  ch. 
iii.,  p.  691. 

f  Cheever,  The  Island  World  of  the  Pacific,  app.  p.  397. 
t  Sandwich  Idand  Notes,  by  A.  Haole,  app.  p.  483. 
^  Forbes,  Unrefuted  Charges,  &c.,  p.  31. 


512  CHAPTER  VI. 

them  from  all  quarters,  affects  to  regard  the  success  of  missions 
in  the  South  Sea  as  a  struggle  for  "  supremacy  "  between  France 
and  America,  and  a  question  of  "commercial  advantages." 
And  this  seems  to  be  a  popular  view  with  many  of  his  country- 
men. Mr.  Hursthouse,  however,  remarks  with  considerable 
force,  that  it  was  evidently  intended  to  make  the  South  Sea 
Islands  "a  select  preserve  for  a  handful  of  missionaries;"*  and 
the  statement  is  confirmed  by  the  proceedings  which  we  are 
about  to  relate. 

It  is  undeniable  that  apparent  success  promptly  followed  the 
appearance  of  the  Protestant  missionaries.  The  natives  of 
Hawaii,  like  those  of  New  Zealand  and  Tahiti,  easily  com- 
prehended the  solid  advantages  which  they  might  derive  from 
association  with  their  new  and  opulent  guests.  Even  Mr. 
Jarves  admits  that  ''interest  more  than  intelligence  conspired 
to  produce  an  outward  conformity,"  and  that  the  barbarians 
accepted  the  religion  of  their  masters  "  because  their  import- 
ance was  increased,  and  their  chance  of  political  preferment 
better. "f  And  this  view  of  the  subject  has  prevailed  up  to 
the  present  time.  "  My  subjects  naturally  wish,"  said  the  King 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands  in  1854:;  uto  learn  the  English  lan- 
guage, which  is  employed  in  all  public  transactions.":}:  No 
doubt  the  words  were  written  for  the  poor  savage  by  his  advisers, 
who,  as  we  shall  see,  had  long  before  that  date  relieved  him  of 
the  care  of  all  "  transactions,"  both  public  and  private." 

The  missionaries  were  now  installed,  and  then  began,  once 
more,  that  eager  race  after  wealth  and  power, — cruel,  greedy, 
and  unscrupulous, — which  their  own  friends  have  so  often  nar- 
rated, but  which  even  they  have  rarely  attempted  to  palliate. 
Mr.  Bingham  was  for  many  years  their  leader,  and  Bingham  is 
thus  described  :  "Bingham  meddles  in  all  the  affairs  of  gov- 
ernment," says  Kotzebue,  "  pays  particular  attention  to  com- 
mercial concerns,  and  seems  to  have  quite  forgotten  his  original 
situation,  and  the  object  of  his  residence  in  these  islands,  find- 
ing the  avocations  of  a  ruler  more  to  his  taste  than  those  of  a 
preacher."  And  again  :  "  That  Binghanrs  private  views  may 
not  be  too  easily  penetrated,  religion  is  made  the  cloak  of  all 
his  designs.  .  .  .  Perhaps  he  already  esteems  himself  the  abso 
l"re  sovereign  of  these  islands."§ 

Lord  Byron,  who  was  struck  by  the  same  facts,  observes; 
"j  Mr.  Bingham  loses  no  opportunity  of  mingling  in  every 


*  New  Zealand,  &c.,  by  Charles  Hursthouse,  p.  51. 
f  History  of  the  8.  Islands,  ch.  x.,  p.  299. 
\  Annuaire  Historiqiie  Universel,  p.  238  (1854). 
|  Voyage  Round  the  World,  vol.  ii..  pp.  255,  261. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  513 

business."*  Mr.  Bingham's  example  was  effectually  imitated 
by  his  companions,  each  in  his  own  sphere.  "  It  will  hardly 
be  credited,"  says  Captain  Sir  Edward  Belcher,  "  that  one  of 
the  chief  missionaries  took  an  active  part  in  destroying  a  con- 
siderable cane  plantation ;  that  the  ground  was  given  for 
school  or  religions  purposes ;  and  that  the  same  individual  is 
now  cultivating  the  proscribed  cane  on  the  same  ground !" 
This  independent  witness  speaks,  in  the  same  page,  of  "  the 
tyranny  of  fanatics,  who  have  already  caused  a  disgust  for  the 
Protestant  creed,  and  will  probably,  in  the  end,  be  expelled." 
"No  slavery  under  ihe  sun,"  he  adds,  "deserves  to  be  ques- 
tioned so  severely  as  that  of  the  Sandwich  Islands."  We  shall 
see  presently  in  what  it  consisted.  Sir  Edward  also  tells  us  a 
fact  which  we  might  have  ventured  to  anticipate,  and  which 
we  have  encountered  in  other  lands,  "  Several  have  already  se- 
ceded from  the  mission,  and  are  enjoying  their  rich  farms."f 
These  men  are  everywhere  the  same. 

Mr.  Melville,  though  a  Protestant  and  an  American,  confirms 
the  evidence  of  these  distinguished  navigators  in  the  following 
energetic  words:  "There  is  something  decidedly  wrong  in  the 
practical  operations  of  the  Sandwich  Islands  missions.  Those 
who,  from  pure  religious  motives,  contribute  to  the  support  of 
this  enterprise,  should  take  care  to  ascertain  that  their  dona- 
tions, flowing  through  many  devious  channels,  at  last  effect 
their  legitimate  object,  the  conversion  of  the  Hawaiians.  I 
urge  this,  not  because  I  doubt  the  moral  probity  of  those  who 
disburse  these  funds,  but  because  I  know  that  they  are  not 
rightly  applied.  To  read  pathetic  accounts  of  missionary  hard- 
ships, and  glowing  descriptions  of  conversions,  and  baptisms 
taking  place  beneath  palm-trees,  is  one  thing ;  and  to  go  to 
the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  see  the  missionaries  dwelling  in 
picturesque  and  prettily-furnished  coral-rock  villas,  whilst  the 
miserable  natives  are  cornmiting  all  sorts  of  immoralities  around 
them,  is  quite  another.";): 

Mr.  Wheeler,  also  an  American,  could  not  help  remarking 
the  "comfortable  houses  of  the  missionaries,  built,  as  nearly  as 
circumstances  will  admit,  in  home  style  ;"  while  Lord  Byron 
attests,  that  the  men  who' were  so  indulgent  to  themselves  dis- 
played only  rigor  towards  others.  "The  missionaries,"  he  says, 
"  forbid  the  making  of  lire,  even  to  cook,  on  Sundays ;  they 
insist  on  the  appearance  of  their  proselytes  five  times  at  church 
every  day."  And  this  extraordinary  system  attained  at  length 

*  Voyage  H.  M.  S.  Blonde,  p.  117. 

f  Narrative  of  a  Voyayt  Round  the  World,  by  Captain  Sir  Edward  Belcher 
vol  i.,  pp.  2G4,  270. 
J  The  Marquesas  Islands,  ch.  xxvi.,  p.  220. 

84 


514  CHAPTKR   VI. 

such  a  character  of  gloomy  severity,  except  within  the  imme- 
diate circle  of  the  missionaries  arid  the  principal  chiefs,  that 
Sir  Edward  Belcher,  who  judged  it  as  a  frank  and  intelligent 
Englishman,  proposes  this  question:  "  Is  it  reasonable  to  expect, 
that  the  millions  inhabiting  the  islands  in  these  seas  can,  from 
a  state  of  the  most  unlimited  enjoyment,  be  brought  by  this  to 
believe  that  the  Christian  religion  is  to  ameliorate  their  con- 
dition, when  the  very  habits  and  countenances  of  their  would- 
be  pastors  are  almost  distorted  by  severity?"*  The  italics  are 
his  own. 

Lastly,  Sir  George  Simpson,  also  an  English  Protestant,  re- 
counts his  impressions  in  the  following  words :  "  The  mission- 
aries were  regarded  as  the  inventors  of  a  servitude  such  as  the 
islands  had  never  known  before ;  and,  even  during  our  visit, 
Borne  of  our  party,  who  were  black,  found  themselves  objects  of 
suspicion  and  fear,  till  they  disclaimed  all  connection  with  the 
'  mikaneries.'  "f 

One  of  the  effects  of  the  ceaseless  tyranny  under  which  the 
Hawaiians  were  now  groaning,  and  which,  as  Captain  Laplace 
notices,  rendered  the  missionaries  "  odious  to  the  greater  part 
of  the  natives,"  was  a  depopulation  so  rapid,  that  a  prejudiced 
writer  in  the  Quarterly  Review  calls  it  "  as  unaccountable  as  it 
is  ominous. "J  We  have  seen,  however,  and  shall  yet  see  more 
clearly,  that  it  is  a  law  which  has  no  exception  in  heathen 
lands  tenanted  by  Protestants.  In  the  Garnbier  Islands,  occu- 
pied by  Catholics,  the  population  has  sensibly  increased  ;§  while 
in  the  Philippines,  so  long  subject  to  the  same  influence,  we 
have  seen,  by  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Crawfurd,  that  "an  immense 
social  improvement"  has  accompanied  the  presence  of  the 
Catholic  civil  and  religious  authorities,  and  the  progressive 
increase  of  population  has  followed  the  usual  law  in  European 
countries.  In  the  Sandwich  Islands,  however,  where  Protest- 
antism reigned  supreme,  we  find  the  same  frightful  declension 
which  has  marked  its  influence  in  the  Antipodes,  in  North 
America,  in  New  Zealand,  and  in  Tahiti,  where  two-thirds  of 
the  whole  population  melted  away  in  thirty  years.  Already  in 
1841,  Mr.  Olmsted,  an  American  writer,  reported,  that  "  the  de- 
population of  the  Sandwich  Islands  is  steadily  moving  forwards, 
and  unless  it  is  speedily  arrested,  the  total  extinction  of  the 
nation  is  inevitable."  "The  annual  decrease  of  the  population" 
was  then,  "upon  an  average,  over  six  thousand."!  In  1851, 

*  Narrative,  vol.  ii.,  p.  27. 
f  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  103. 
±  July,  1859. 

§  Laplace,  tome  v.,  p.  351. 
Jl  Incidents,  &c.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  262. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANIC  A.  515 

the  Kev.  Gustavus  Hines,  an  American  Protestant  minister, 
after  observing  that  "the  astonishing  rapidity  of  the  decrease 
of  the  Hawaiian  population  is  perhaps  without  a  parallel  in 
the  history  of  nations,"  adds,  that  in  the  course  of  four  succes- 
sive years  it  diminished  by  twenty-one  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  thirty.*  And  Mr.  Dana,  also  an  American  writer,  reports 
at  a  still  later  date,  that  they  are  now  disappearing  "  at  the 
rate  of  one-fortieth  of  the  entire  population  annually. "f  Yet 
the  robust  vigor  of  this  "doomed  people,"  as  Mr.  Dana  calls 
them,  was  wont  to  excite  the  admiration  of  all  the  early  navi- 
gators ;  and  forty  years  ago,  Yon  Langsdorff,  noticing  their 
strength  and  symmetry,  declared  that  "many  of  them  might 
very  well  have  been  placed  by  the  side  of  the  most  celebrated 
chef-d'ceuvres  of  antiquity,  and  would  have  lost  nothing  by  the 
comparison."^; 

And  now  that  we  have  seen  something  of  the  character  of 
the  missionaries,  of  the  nature  of  their  operations,  and  the 
effect  of  their  presence,  let  us  introduce  without  further  delay, 
and  as  usual  in  the  order  of  dates,  the  witnesses  who  will  tell 
us  what  they  have  actually  accomplished,  during  their  long 
sojourn,  towards  the  propagation  of  Christianity,  and  the  social 
improvement  of  the  natives. 

We  will  begin,  as  before,  with  Mr.  Ellis,  in  1829.  In  this 
case  he  was  not  personally  concerned,  and  therefore  revealed  the 
whole  truth.  "  Idolatry  had  indeed  been  renounced,"  he  says, 
referring  to  the  period  of  his  own  visit,  but  "  the  great  mass  of 
the  people  were  living  without  any  moral  or  religious  restraint."§ 
Perhaps  nine  years  was  too  short  a  period  for  the  desired  change. 

In  1830,  Kotzebue  gives  us  an  actual  specimen  of  a  "  convert," 
the  Queen  of  Hawaii.  "I  inquired  the  grounds  of  her  conver- 
sion. She  replied  that  she  could  not  exactly  describe  them,  but 
that  the  missionary  Bingham,  who  understood  reading  and 
writing  perfectly  well,  had  assured  her  that  the  Christian  faith 
was  the  best.  If,  however,  she  added,  it  should  be  found  un- 
suited  to  our  people,  we  will  reject  it,  and  adopt  another."] 

It  appears  from  the  testimony  of  a  distinguished  British  offi- 
cer, at  a  much  later  date,  that  the  commonalty  of  these  islands, 
-though  nominally  Protestant,  had  even  less  Christian  feeling 
than  this  royal  convert.     "  Not  many  years  ago,"  says  Captain 
Sherard  Osborn,  "  I  heard  some  Sandwich  Islanders  singing  the 


*  Life  on  the  Plains  of  the  Pacific,  ch.  xi.,  p.  210. 

f  Two  Years  before  the  Mast,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  174. 

±  Voyages,  &c.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  108  (1813). 

§  Polynesian  Researches,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  544. 

1  Vol.  ii,  p.  208. 


516  CHAPTER  VI. 

sixty-fourth  Psalm,  to  soothe  the  heathen  goddess,  who,  they 
believe,  presides  over  their  troublesome  volcano."* 

In  1831,  Captain  Beechey  says:  " The  residents  in  Honolulu 
well  know  what  little  effect  the  exertion  of  the  missionaries  has 
produced ;"  and  he  adds  that  "  the  system  of  religious  restraint 
was  alike  obnoxious  to  the  foreigners  residing  upon  the  island, 
and  to  the  natives."f 

In  1832,  Dr.  Meyen,  a  Prussian  naturalist,  travelling  with  a 
purely  scientific  object,  and  free  from  all  religious  preposses- 
sions, confirms  the  testimony  which  we  have  already  received 
from  witnesses  as  capable  and  impartial  as  himself.  He  also 
speaks  with  disgust  and  indignation  of  "  the  doings  of  the  mis- 
sionaries who  oppressed  these  islands,'*  and  proves,  as  an  English 
writer  observes,  that  "  almost  eve^y  thing  had  certainly  deterio- 
rated^^ "Let  us  publish  it  aloud,"  says  this  candid 'German, 
"  it  is  neither  the  glory  of  the  Supreme  Being,  nor  the  zeal  of  a 
noble  vocation,  which  has  impelled  these  hypocritical  mission- 
aries to  visit  these  distant  shores,  but  a  greedy  cupidity,  and  an 
insatiable  thirst  for  honors."  "  Several  of  them,"  he  adds,  "  had 
already  amassed  a  considerable  fortune,  at  the  expense  of  the 
natives,  who  by  their  detestable  frauds  are  reduced  to  penury ."§ 

In  the  same  year,  as  a  still  more  capable  witness  relates,  on 
the  death  of  Kaahumanu  this  "converted"  people,  "galled 
with  too  severe  a  curb  on  their  habits  and  inclinations,  broke 
loose  in  debauchery  and  every  sort  of  vice.  Moral  anarchy 
prevailed  not  only  in  Honolulu,  but  throughout  the  group. 
Schools  were  deserted,  the  teachers  themselves  falling  away  ; 
buildings  for  worship  were  burned.  The  dark  habits  of  hea- 
thenism sprang  up  again,  like  the  heads  of  Medusa,  and  in  one 
district  at  least  of  Hawaii,  idolatrous  worship  was  once  more 
performed.  If  we  may  give  full  credence  to  accounts  which 
come  to  us  through  the  missionary  party,  the  islands  must  for 
a  time  have  been  a  pandemonium."]  Yet  during  the  whole 
period,  the  missionaries,  whose  mode  of  life  could  only  be  sus- 
tained by  the  punctual  payment  of  their  salaries,  were  reporting 
officially  to  their  employers  that  their  success  was  complete. 

In  1833,  one  of  their  own  witnesses  admits,  that  "  in  all  the 
islands,"!"  though  thirteen  years  had  now  elapsed,  only  six 
hundred  and  sixty-nine  were  deemed  Christians  even  by  such 

*  The  Past  and  Future  of  British  Relations  in  China,  by  Captain  Sherard 
Osborn,  C.B.,  ch.  i.,  p.  48  (1860). 

f  Voyage,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  x.,  p.  319;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  101. 

\  Quarterly  Rewew,.vol.  liii.,  p.  330. 

§  Annales,  tome  viii.,  p.  11. 

I  Hawaii,  an  historical  account  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  by  Manley  Hopkins, 
Hawaiian  Consul-general,  ch.  xv.,  p.  224. 

^[  Missionary  Report,  quoted  in  the  Chinese  Repository,  vol.  ii.,  p.  379. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  517 

masters ;  and  in  the  same  year  they  confessed,  in  an  official  re- 
port to  the  American  Board :  "  Great  numbers  forsook  the 
schools;  the  congregations  on  the  Sabbath  were  reduced  at 
least  one-half;"  and  they  explain  the  defection  by  saying, 
u  Multitudes  became  Christians  in  form,  never  expecting  that 
any  thing  else  could  be  required  of  them."* 

In  1835,  Mr.  Reynolds,  a  scientific  American  Protestant, 
whose  candid  evidence  about  the  Catholic  missionaries  shall  be 
quoted  hereafter,  says  with  an  air  of  calm  surprise  :  "  The 
improvement  and  advancement  of  these  islanders  has  been  con- 
siderably exaggerated."t 

In  1838,  Dr.  Ruschenberger,  an  American  writer  of  the  same 
class,  forgetting  national  and  religious  prejudices,  writes  as 
follows :  "  The  friends  of  the  missionaries  have  drawn  over- 
wrought pictures  of  the  prosperity  and  prospects  of  the  islands. 

Though  we  are  all  ready  to  accord  our  praise  to  the 

pleasing  fictions  of  a  novelist,  we  expect  rigid  accuracy  from  the 
pen  of  the  divine,  and  are  not  disposed  to  allow  him  to  envelop 
facts  in  the  glowing  language  of  a  poetic  fancy."  And  then  he 
goes  on  thus :  "  The  missionaries  stationed  at  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  as  a  class,  are  inferior  to  all  those  whom  it  has  been 
our  fortune  to  meet  at  other  stations  during  the  cruise.  Many 
of  them  are  far  behind  the  age  in  which  they  live,  deficient  in 
general  knowledge,  ....  and  deal  damnation,  in  a  peculiar 
slang,  to  all  whose  opinions  and  course  of  life  differ  from  their 
own.  This  is  no  sketch  of  fancy ;  and  we  can  only  lament 
there  is  no  power  to  shield  the  pulpit  from  the  vulgar  spoutings 
of  unlettered  ignorance."  He  adds,  however,  "I  have  no 
doubt  the  4 Board  for  Foreign  Missions'  sends  abroad  the  best 
they  have  at  command.";):  Yet  it  was  at  this  very  time  that 
these  singular  missionaries  wrote  as  follows  to  the  society  which 
paid  them,  and  which  always  rewarded  such  language  :  u  The 
strength  of  religious  principle  among  the  people,  and  their 
preparation  to  act  from  their  own  convictions  of  duty,  are  more 
manifest  than  ever!" 

In  1840,  Commodore  George  Read,  an  American  officer,  and 
Mr.  Debell  Bennett,  an  English  traveller,  record  their  impression 
of  the,  progress  of  religion  and  civilization  in  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  by  the  efforts  of  more  than  seventy  missionaries,  and 
an  expenditure  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  sterling.  The  former 
observes,  with  evident  reluctance,  "I  must  say,  that  the  mass 
of  the  natives,  notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  of  the  missionaries, 

*  History  of  American  Missions,  by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Tracy,  p.  242. 
f   Voyage  of  the  Frigate  Potomac,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  417. 

$  Voyage  Round  the  World,  by  W.  S.  W.  Ruschenberger,  M.D.,  ch.  xliii., 
p.  464. 


518  CHAPTER   VI. 

appear  to  be  still  indolent,  licentious  in  disposition,  and  quite 
ignorant  of  the  term  virtue."*  Yet  this  very  year  the  mission- 
aries wrote  to  their  employers  in  these  words  :  "  The  past  year 
has  been  one  of  signal  triumphs  of  Divine  grace  ;''f  and  their 
employers  printed  and  circulated  the  report. 

It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that,  nearly  twenty  years  later, 
an  English  Protestant, — of  a  class  which  is  not  yet  extinct,  and 
whose  extraordinary  ignorance  of  the  religion  of  St.  Anselm 
and  Sir  Thomas  More  is  wonderful  even  in  an  Englishman, — 
confesses  that  he  heard  a  sermon,  preached  by  a  "Reverend  Mr. 
Paris,"  in  which  the  preacher  informed  his  audience,  consisting 
of  three  or  four  hundred  natives,  "  that  the  measure  of  their 
iniquities  being  full,  offended  Heaven  was  about  to  cut  them 
utterly  off  from  the  land,  that  their  place  might  be  filled  by 
the  children  of  a  worthier  race.";};  The  poor  natives  had  by  this 
time  been  robbed  of  every  thing  else,  and  even  the  mission- 
aries could  find  nothing  more  to  steal  from  them  but  their 
land,  which,  with  the  help  of  "  offended  Heaven,"  they  were 
prepared  to  do. 

Mr.  Bennett  speaks  as  follows  of  what  he  saw  in  the  Sand- 
wich Islands :  "  In  worldly  matters  the  missionaries  in  this 
group  are  particularly  well-favored ;  few  of  the  foreign  residents 
possess  better  dwellings,  or  more  available  comforts."  Of 
Maurua  he  says,  "  The  females  were  bold  in  their  amours,  and 
the  people  generally  were  more  prone  to  petty  larceny  than  was 
altogether  creditable  to  their  morals."  And  then  he  went  tc 
the  Lobos  Islands,  and  at  St.  Lucas  Bay  he  writes  thus :  "  The 
inhabitants  live  contented,  and  consequently  happy  ;  and  their 
conduct  towards  each  other,  as  well  as  to  ourselves,  was  equally 
courteous  and  hospitable.  The  women  are  notable  and  modest. 
They  profess  the  Roman  Catholic  religion."  "  The  Jesuit  mis- 
sionaries," he  adds, — Protestant  travellers  always  call  a  Catho- 
lic priest  a  Jesuit — "  would  appear  to  have  performed  their  duty 
with  assiduity  and  success ;  the  native  Indians,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  very  few  tribes,  having  adopted  in  a  great  measure  the 
language,  religion,  and  habits  of  their  civilized  teachers."§ 
Have  we  not  reason  to  say  that  the  contrast,  always  attested 
by  Protestant  witnesses,  is  everywhere  the  same  ? 

In  1842,  the  Protestant  missionaries  in  the  Sandwich  Islands 
begin  at  last  to  confess,  in  their  own  peculiar  dialect,  that  "the 
assiduous  efforts  of  the  Papists  have  not  failed  of  success  painful 

*  Around  the  World,  by  Commodore  George  C.  Read,  vol.  ii.,  p.  309. 
f  Tracy's  History,  p.  181. 

i  Travels  in  tJie  Sandwich  and  Society  Islands,  by  S.  S.  Hill,  Esq.,  ch.  xx., 
p.  329. 

§  Vol.  ii.,  -ch.  i.,  pp.  9,  10. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANIC  A.  519 

to  every  benevolent  mind ;"  and  that  "  Romanism  has  unques- 
tionably made  some  considerable  advances,  and  penetrated 
many  districts  where  it  was  before  unknown."*  A  little  later 
they  will  give  us  more  ample  information  of  its  progress. 

In  1843,  we  have  the  unsuspicious  evidence  of  Sir  Edward 
Belcher,  who  not  only  asserts  that  the  general  influence  of  the 
missionaries  is  ruinous  to  the  character  and  happiness  of  the 
natives,  but  furnishes  the  following  instructive  details.  "  Is  it 
not  strange,  with  all  the  influence  the  American  missionaries 
are  said  to  have  over  the  king,  that  it  is  not  properly  exerted  to 
improve  his  moral  character  ?  To  compass  any  object  having 
for  its  end  injury  to  the  interests  of  their  own  merchants  they 
are  keenly  awake,  .  .  .  yet  they  permit  the  pattern,  by  which 
all  law  acquires  moral  force  and  energy,  to  commit  sins  and 
inconsistencies,  not  only  without  control,  but  without  expressing 
their  opinion  in  that  manly  form  which  they  pretend  their 
mission  so  imperatively  demands  of  them."  And  then  he  adds, 
as  if  to  complete  the  picture,  "  Perhaps  the  greatest  excesses 
are  committed  within  the  missionary  circle,  which  includes  the 
king  and  chiefs. "f  Mr.  Stewart,  himself  an  American  mission- 
ary, but  who  was  perfectly  candid  because  he  had  abandoned 
the  work,  confirms  incidentally  this  statement  of  Sir  Edward 
Belcher,  when  he  tells  us,  that  Riho-Riho  "  attended  all  the 
services  of  the  day,"  though  during  the  week  he  had  been 
"intoxicated  four  or  five  days."  He  appears  at  last  to  have 
died  in  that  state.J 

In  1845,  Mr.  Melville,  though  an  American,  says:  "JSTot 
until  I  visited  Honolulu  was  I  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  small 
remnant  of  the  natives  had  been  civilized  into  draught  horses, 
and  evangelized  into  beasts  of  burden.  But  so  it  is!"  And 
then  he  goes  on  to  describe  ua  missionary's  spouse,  who  day 
after  day,  for  months  together,  took  her  regular  airings  in  a 
little  go-cart  drawn  by  two  of  the  islanders.  "§ 

And  this  singular  fact  is  confirmed  by  M.  Duflot  de  Mofras  in 
1844,  who  noticed  that  "the  natives  now  discharge  the  office 
of  beasts  of  burden  ;"[  and  by  a  correspondent  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands  Gazette  in  1839,  who  relates  that  he  saw  ua  heavy 
horse  wagon  drawn  by  fifteen  females,  harnessed  like  beasts  of 
burden ;  and  found  that  they  were  performing  a  penance 
imposed  by  the  missionaries."^  But  to  return  to  Mr.  Melville. 

*  Missionary  Herald,  vol.  xxxviii.,  p.  473. 
f  Narrative  of  a  Voyage,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  p.  264. 

\  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  by  C.  S.  Stewart,  p.  110. 
2d  edition. 

§  The  Marquesas  Islands,  ch.  xxvi.,  p.  218. 

j  Exploration  du  Territoire  de  I' Oregon,  &c.,  tome  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  87. 

*|[  Quoted  in  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  xxxi.,  p.  48. 


520  CHAPTER   VI. 

This  vigorous  though  indelicate  writer  suras  up  his  observa- 
tions in  these  words:  "  How  little  do  some  of  these  poor  island- 
ers comprehend,  when  they  look  around  them,  that  no  incon- 
siderable part  of  their  disasters  originate  in  certain  tea-party 
excitements," — he  alludes  to  the  "  missionary  meetings"  at 
home — "  the  object  of  which  is  to  ameliorate  the  spiritual  con- 
dition of  the  Polynesians,  but  whose  end  has  almost  invariably 
been  to  accomplish  their  temporal  destruction." 

But  he  cites  facts  also  in  confirmation  of  his  opinion.  When 
Lord  George  Paulet,  in  1843,  released  the  unfortunate  natives 
from  the  tyranny  of  their  missionary  rulers,  and  gave  them  at 
length  an  opportunity  of  showing  whether  their  profession  of 
religion  was  voluntary,  and  how  far  the  missionaries  had  really 
acted  upon  their  hearts  and  minds, — then  was  revealed,  as  in 
Ceylon  and  in  Tahiti,  the  true  character  of  Protestant  converts 
from  heathenism.  "Who  that  happened  to  be  at  Honolulu 
during  those  ten  memorable  days  will  ever  forget  them ! 
The  history  of  those  ten  days  reveals  in  their  true  colors  the 
character  of  the  Sandwich  Islanders,  and  furnishes  an  eloquent 
commentary  on  the  results  which  have  flowed  from  the  labors 
of  the  missionaries.  Freed  from  all  restraints  of  severe  penal 
laws,  the  natives  almost  to  a  man  plunged  voluntarily  into 
every  species  of  wickedness  arid  excess,  and  by  their  utter 
disregard  of  all  decency  plainly  showed,  that  although  they 
had  been  schooled  into  a  seeming  submission  to  the  new 
order  of  things,  they  were  in  reality  as  depraved  and  vicious 
as  ever."* 

In  1849,  Mr.  Walpole,  a  gentleman  whose  prejudices 
against  the  Catholic  religion  even  the  facts  which  he  unwill- 
ingly records  fail  to  admonish,  writes  as  follows:  "The 
great  interest  1  feel  for  the  natives,  and  my  heartfelt  desire 
for  their  well-being,  lead  me  to  deplore  much  that  the  mis- 
sionaries have  done ;  and  happy  indeed  should  I  be  to  hear 
the  grave  aspersions  they  labor  under  disproved.  The  bit- 
ter persecutions,  even  to  death,  of  natives  who  for  conscience 
sake  preferred  to  die,  rather  than  betray  their  Roman  Cath- 
olic faith,  and  the  undenied  monetary  dirtinesses  they  are 
accused  of,  are  grave  charges  indeed."f  We  shall  hear 
presently  what  he  says  of  the  Catholics,  and  of  their  pas- 
tors. 

In  1850,  Mr.  Berthold  Seemann,  after  noticing,  apparently 
with  surprise,  that  "the  majority  of  the  king's  counsellors  are 
seceders  from  the  American  mission," — missionaries  converted 

*  Appendix,  p.  285. 

f  Four  Tears  in  the  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  249. 


MISSIONS  IN   OCEANICA.  521 

into  officers  of  the  State,* — adds,  that  their  royal  pupil  still 
permitted  himself  u  all  kinds  of  unholy  and  immoral  prac- 
tices ;"f  and  in  the  following  year,  Mr.  Gerstaecker  found  that, 
owing  to  ua  severe  attack  of  delirium  tremens,  he-was  not  n't 
to  be  seen  during  my  whole  stay  in  Oahu." 

The  Kev.  Gustavus  Hines,  an  American  Protestant  mission- 
ary, whose  extraordinary  candor  we  can  only  attribute  to  the 
fact  that  the  Sandwich  Islands  were  not  the  permanent  sphere 
of  his  own  labor,  described  with  considerable  detail  the  actual 
results  of  Protestant  missions,  after  thirty  years  of  uninterrupted 
effort.  It  was  impossible  that  the  sentence  upon  them  should 
be  pronounced  by  a  more  competent  or  impartial  judge;  and  it 
required  some  courage  to  tell  the  whole  truth.  For  many  years 
a  certain  section  of  American  society  had  been  fascinated  with 
romantic  tales  of  the  triumphs  of  Protestantism  in  the  South 
Sea.  One  is  almost  ashamed  to  quote,  even  by  way  of  specimen, 
the  language  which  was  addressed  to  every  missionary  meeting, 
and  always  greeted  with  enthusiastic  applause.  "  The  smiles 
of  Jesus,"  wrote  the  Rev.  Mr.  Green,  "  on  the  efforts  made  to 
convert  the  inhabitants  of  Hawaii  have  been  signal  :";£  and 
they  immediately  sent  him  five  thousand  dollars  as  a  reward  for 
words  in  which  the  profane  and  the  ludicrous  struggle  together 
for  the  mastery.  Yet  this  was  the  common  phraseology  of  the 
missionaries,  during  a  long  course  of  years,  in  the  reports  which 
they  forwarded  to  the  United  States ;  and  it  was  the  influence  of 
such  reports  which  extracted  from  women  and  children — for  we 
can  hardly  suppose  that  grown  men  were  amongst  the  sub- 
scribers— upwards  of  one  million  dollars,  to  be  consumed  by 
the  missionaries  and  their  families  in  the  Sandwich  Islands. 
Mr.  Hines  will  tell  us,  though  a  Protestant,  a  missionary,  and 
an  American,  with  what  effect  this  prodigal  expenditure  has 

*  It  may  be  well  to  notice  a  single  specimen  of  this  class.  An  English  gen- 
tleman thus  describes,  in  1854,  a  voyage  which  he  made  with  the  king. 
"  Strict  teetotalism  was  observed  on  board,  every  thing  being  under  the  com- 
mand of  Dr.  Judd,  who  was  formerly  one  of  the  missionaries,  but  now  held  the 
more  lucrative  office  of  Minister  of  Finance."  Wishing  to  take  some  spirits, 
"  I  obtained  a  glass  of  water,  and  walked  down  into  the  cabin ;  but  there  was  Dr. 
Judd,  not  being  a  good  sailor,  lying  in  his  berth.  '  Do  you  smoke,  Dr.  Judd  ?' 
said  I,  to  begin  the  conversation.  '  No,  sir,  I  do  not  smoke/  answered  he, 
'  but  I  chew  a  good  deal.'  This  I  did  not  require  to  be  told,  as  he  lay  in  his 
berth  all  day  chewing  tobacco,  and  spitting  into  a  calabash  by  his  side.  I 
thought  that  if  he  chewed,  I  might  drink,  so  I  filled  my  glass  of  rum  and 
water."  Tour  Mound  the  World,  by  Robert  Elwes,  Esq.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  195.  An- 
other of  these  ex-missionaries,  one  Richards,  who  had  commenced  life  as  "  an 
itinerant  vender,"  was  sent  to  London  and  Paris  as  "  Minister  Plenipotentiary" 
of  the  King  of  Hawaii ! 

f  Narrative  of  the  Voyage  of  H.  M.  8.  Herald,  by  Berthold  Seemann.  F.L.S., 
vol.  ii.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  153  (1853). 

|  Quoted  by  Strickland,  History  of  the  American  Bible  Society,  ch.  xxv.,  p.  211 


522  CHAPTER   VI. 

been  attended,  and  he  will  speak  from  his  own  experience  and 
observation. 

"  Notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  done  for  their  benefit, 
the  state  of  the  native  Hawaiians  is  still  truly  deplorable"  after 
thirty  years  of  uninterrupted  missionary  effort !  "  To  call  them 
a  christianized,  civilized,  happy,  and  prosperous  people,  would 
be  to  mislead  the  public  mind  in  relation  to  their  true  condition. 

To  an  inquiry  which  I  made  of  the  Rev.  Lowel  Smith,  one 

of  the  missionaries  in  Honolulu,  concerning  the  prosperity  of 
the  natives,  I  received  this  reply :  '  The  evident  tendency  of 
things  is  downward?  Downward  it  is  rapidly,  in  point  of 
numbers,  and  if  the  ratio  of  decrease  shall  continue  the  same 
for  only  a  few  years,  it  does  not  require  the  eye  of  a  prophet 
to  see  what  will  be  the  result.  The  epitaph  of  the  nation  will 
be  written,  and  Anglo-Saxons  will  convert  the  islands  into  an- 
other West  Indies."* 

A  little  later,  Mr.  Hines  offers  this  summary  of  his  experi- 
ence as  to  the  ultimate  results  of  missionary  influence. 

"  Religion,  in  every  department  of  Hawaiian  society,  however 
genuine  the  system  which  is  taught  there  may  be," — it  is  due 
to  him  to  say,  that  he  does  not  seem  to  have  even  suspected  its 
genuineness, — "  is  of  a  very  superficial  character.  Of  this  the 
missionary  residing  among  them  is  more  sensible  than  any  other 
man  can  be,  and  one  of  them,  in  answer  to  the  inquiry,  '  How 
many  of  your  people  give  daily  evidence  of  being  Christian  ?' 
replied,  ''None,  if  you  look  for  the  same  evidence  which  you 
expect  will  be  exhibited  by  Christians  at  home.'"  And  Mr. 
Hines  declares  that  this  account  of  them  is  true,  "from  the  hut 
of  the  most  degraded  menial  to  the  royal  palace."  Yet  if  the 
reader  will  consult  the  annual  "  Reports"  of  the  missionary 
societies,  he  will  find  that  they  never  cease  to  represent  the 
triumphant  progress  of  religion,  education,  and  social  order, 
among  these  very  people,  of  whom  privately  the  missionaries 
gave  only  such  accounts  as  Mr.  Hines  received  from  them. 

Let  us  hear  Mr.  Hines  once  more.  u  In  attending  the  native 
churches  one  is  struck  with  the  listlessness  and  inattention 
which  prevail  in  the  congregation.  No  matter  how  important 
the  truths,  or  how  impressive  the  manner  of  the  speaker,  he 
seems  scarcely  to  gain  the  hearing  of  the  ear."f 

Finally,  as  if  he  thought  that  such  an  account  of  a  mission- 
ary work  continued  for  more  than  thirty  years,  at  enormous 
cost,  without  let  or  hindrance,  and  by  people  claiming  to  be  the 
only  advocates  of  u scriptural  religion,"  required  the  support  oi 

*  Life  on  the  Plains  of  the  Pacifa,  ch.  xi.,  p.  232. 
f  Ch.  xiii.,  p.  253. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  523 

some  terrible  and  conclusive  fact,  Mr.  Hines  informs  us,  that  the 
immorality  of  this  nominally  converted  people  is  so  shameless 
and  universal,  that  u  it  is  not  an  easy  matter  for  an  Hawaiian 
to  tell  who  his  father  is." 

Ten  years  later,  for  we  need  not  pursue  with  greater  detail  a 
history  which  never  varies  in  tone  or  import  from  1820  to  1862, 
an  English  traveller  once  more  reveals  the  astounding  profligacy 
of  "this  much-boasted  Christian  native  population  of  the  Sand- 
wich Islands."  Some  of  his  examples  will  not  bear  quotation, 
and  the  worst  of  all  are  displayed  by  those  who  are  constant 
attendants  at  Protestant  worship,  and  affect,  in  the  presence  of 
the  missionaries,  the  most  austere  piety.  "  You  find  a  man," 
says  this  Protestant  witness,  u  parading  his  religion  one  day  to 
his  teachers  and  his  fellows,  and  selling  his  wife  or  daughter 
the  next  for  a  dollar."  "If  Christianity,"  he  adds,  "  has  ever 
impressed  on  their  hearts  what  virtue  is,  the  mark  has  been 
very  light,  and  soon  obliterated."*  Such,  once  more,  has  been 
the  fruit  of  labors  continued,  during  forty  years,  by  nearly  one 
hundred  Protestant  missionaries. 

Lastly,  in  1862,  the  testimonies  of  so  many  witnesses  are 
finally  closed  by  one  whose  verdict  is,  if  possible,  more  un- 
favorable than  any  which  had  preceded  it.  In  1853,  Mr. 
Gerstaecker  had  remarked,  that  the  missionaries  were  still  what 
they  had  ever  been,  and  that  "their  estates  are  among  the  best 
on  the  island;"  and  in  1854,  Mr. Elwes,  though  their  guest  and 
companion,  had  reported,  that  they  had  no  success  but  "  in  the 
way  of  trade,  and  in  looking  out  for  their  own  interests,  for  in 
that  they  are  sharp  enough."f  But  we  cannot  quote  them  all. 
We  have  remarked,  however,  as  the  special  feature  in  the  annals 
of  Protestant  missions,  that,  far  from  recording  any  improve- 
ment as  time  advances  and  resources  multiply,  "  the  latest  re- 
port of  them  is  always  the  worst."  We  must  not  conclude 
without  showing,  by  one  effective  example,  that  this  is  as  true 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands  as  of  every  other  region  of  the  earth 
in  which  Protestant  missionaries  have  found  a  home. 

In  1862,  Mr.  Manley  Hopkins  published  his  history  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands.  This  gentleman,  who  does  not  conceal  his 
sympathies  with  Protestantism,  was  the  Hawaiian  Consul-gen- 
eral, and  his  work  is  dedicated  by  permission  to  Earl  Russell, 
and  adorned  with  a  laudatory  preface  by  the  Protestant  Bishop 
of  Oxford.  We  could  not  desire  a  more  experienced  or  author- 
itative witness. 

"  The  missionaries,"  says  Mr.  Hopkins,  after  a  minute  ex- 

*  Japan,  the  Pacific,  &c.,  by  Henry  Arthur  Tilley,  ch.  xvii ,  pp.  319,  321. 
f  Tour  Hound  the  World,  by  Robert  Elwes,  Esq.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  189  ;  ch.  xiii., 
p.  220. 


524  CHAPTER  VI. 

animation  of  all  their  proceedings,  "  clothed  and  converted  the 
natives,  and  they  produced,  not  alas!  a  regenerated  people,  but 
a  nation  of  hypocrites"  Such  is  the  character  of  their  disci- 
ples in  1862,  while  of  themselves  he  observes,  "not -a  few  of 
their  number  showed  considerable  alacrity  in  the  search  of 
wealth,  seeking  it  diligently,  and  investing  it  in  very  remuner- 
ative securities." 

But  Mr.  Hopkins,  who  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  made 
such  statements  without  reluctance,  confirms  them  by  the  con- 
fessions of  the  missionaries  themselves,  as  well  as  by  the  official 
report  of  Mr.  Dana,  whose  eulogy  of  the  Catholic  missions,  he 
observes,  was  quietly  suppressed  by  the  missionary  society  to 
whom  his  report  was  addressed,  lest  it  should  prove  "  unsatis- 
factory to  the  supporters  of  the  mission  !"  Here  are  some  of 
the  words  which  his  employers  declined  to  print.  "  I  visited," 
says  Mr.  Dana,  "  several  churches  and  schools  under  the  juris- 
diction of  the  Roman  Catholic  bishop,  which  extends  over  all 
the  islands  of  the  group.  So  far  as  I  observed,  the  missions  are 
successful.  The  churches  are  well  filled,  and  the  priests  bear 
good  reputations  for  fidelity  and  self-denial,  and  several  whom 
I  met  I  found  to  be  men  of  thorough  education.  They  gained 
especially  in  public  esteem  by  their  conduct  during  the  terrible 
visitation  of  the  small-pox  a  few  years  ago."  Like  the  prophet 
of  old,  Mr.  Dana  was  employed  to  curse,  but  found  himself 
constrained  to  bless. 

Mr.  Willie,  another  witness  quoted  by  Mr.  Hopkins,  gives 
this  account  of  the  morality  of  the  people :  u  It  is  my  frank 
belief  that  unless  the  Hawaiian  females  can  be  rendered  more 
pure  and  chaste,  it  is  impossible  to  preserve  the  Hawaiian  peo- 
ple in  being."  Yet  Mr.  Bennett  has  told  us  of  female  con- 
verts of  exactly  the  same  class,  but  instructed  by  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries, "  the  women  are  notable  and  modest."  The  Protest- 
ant teachers  appear  to  have  been  less  successful.  "Forty  years' 
assiduous  evangelizing,"  says  the  Polynesian,  in  July,  1861, 
"  two  entire  generations  born  and  bred  in  the  Christian  faith — 
public  schools  in  every  village — religious  revivals  almost  every 
year — prayer-meetings  innumerable — and  yet  two-thirds  of  the 
abandoned  women  married  persons !  The  thing  is  incredible, 
were  it  not  attested." 

Lastly,  Dr.  Rae,  in  a  series  of  articles  published  in  the  same 
journal,  which  is  the  organ  of  the  government,  gives  at  the 
same  date  the  following  account,  both  of  the  contrast  between 
the  Catholic  and  Protestant  missions,  and  of  the  terms  in  which 
it  was  noticed  by  his  co-religionists:  "I  do  not  recollect  having 
been  in  any  mixed  company  in  these  islands  where  the  subject 
of  the  Protestant  mission  was  introduced,  without  hearing  either 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  525 

a  sneer,  a  sarcasm,  or  a  reproach  against  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  wherever  I  have  been,  and  with  whomsoever  I  have  met, 
I  have  never  encountered  any  one,  except  in  controversy,  who 
did  not  speak  in  terms  of  respect  of  the  Catholic  priesthood.  I 
simply  note  a  fact — it  is  for  the  reader  to  draw  the  conclusion."* 

If  perchance  the  reader  has  by  this  time  forgotten,  in  follow- 
ing the  course  of  so  different  a  narrative,  the  account  of  mis- 
sions in  the  Philippines,  conducted  by  apostles  and  martyrs, 
with  which  this  chapter  opened,  he  may  now  be  conveniently 
reminded  of  it.  "In  examining  the  new  social  state  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands,"  says  Admiral  Jurien  de  la  Graviere,  in 
1853,  "  I  was  involuntarily  reminded  of  the  Indian  of  the  Phil- 
ippines, joyous  and  free  to  this  hour  under  the  yoke  of  the  law 
which  he  confesses,  finding  in  the  ceremonies  of  religion  the 
recreation  which  he  most  prizes,  and  in  the  doctrines  of  his 
simple  faith  fewer  subjects  of  discouragement  than  of  hope."f 
Such,  once  more,  is  the  contrast  between  Catholic  and  Protest- 
ant missions,  between  the  work  of  God  and  the  work  of  man. 

But  that  contrast  admits  of  fuller  illustration,  and  it  is  the 
main  object  of  these  volumes  to  supply  it.  We  have  seen  that 
the  later  history  of  Tahiti  furnishes  further  evidence  of  it ;  but 
that  evidence  may  be  supplemented  by  the  still  more  striking 
incidents  which  have  occurred  in  the  Hawaiian  group,  and 
in  the  other  islands  of  the  South  Sea.  There  was  a  class  of 
converts  of  whom  Mr.  Hines  makes  no  mention,  though  Mr. 
Walpole  has  candidly  told  us  that  they  resisted,  "even  to 
death,"  all  inducements  to  abandon  the  Catholic  faith.  Per- 
haps Mr.  Hines  had  not  mixed  with  them,  or  found  it  embar- 
rassing to  speak  of  them.  Others  will  supply  the  defect  in  his 
narrative,  and  disclose  the  facts  which  he  seems  to  have  wished 
to  suppress. 

Seven  years  elapsed  from  the  visit  of  the  Abbe  de  Quelen  to 
the  Sandwich  Islands  before  another  Catholic  missionary  landed 
on  their  shores.  In  1826,  a  prefect  apostolic,  attended  by  two 
companions,  arrived  at  Hawaii.  The  ground  was  preoccupied, 
and  all  human  influences  were  against  them,  but  they  imme- 
diately commenced  their  mission  of  mercy.  Protestant  writers 
will  tell  us  how  they  fared,  and  what  was  the  issue  of  their 
labors. 

The  intelligent  historian  of  the  Voyage  of  the  Potomac,  who 
saw  and  conversed  with  these  first  missionaries,  generously 
says, — and  Dr.  Meyen  uses  almost  the  same  words:  "They 

*  Hawaii,  an  Historical  Account  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  by  Manley  Hop- 
kins, Hawaiian  Consul-general,  ch.  xv.,  p.  224 ;  ch.  xvi.,  p.  243 ;  ch.  xxiii.,  p. 
371 ;  ch.  xxiv.,  pp.  386-8-90  (1862). 

f  Revue  des  Deux  Monde*,  tome  iii.,  p.  38  (1853). 


526  CHAPTER  VI. 

were  men  of  learning,  and  agreeable  manners  and  conversa- 
tion, and  in  all  their  acts  and  behavior  appeared  sincerely  pious. 
Pleased  with  their  manners  and  instructions,  the  natives  came 
in  numbers  to  be  taught  by  them,  so  that  the  school  and  place 
of  worship  began  to  be  crowded.  .  .  .  They  never  attempted 
to  draw  the  natives  to  themselves,  except  by  amiable  and  kind 
deportment.  Indeed,  they  were  exemplary  in  all4  their  actions. 
But  their  success  was  too  great,  and  they  were  ordered  to  dis- 
continue their  worship.  .  .  .  The  natives  were  forced  from  their 
houses  of  worship  by  native  soldiers,  ordered  by  authority.  .  .  . 
Finally,  the  missionaries  were  conveyed  to  the  coast  of  Cali- 
fornia, on  board  a  little  rickety  vessel,  and  there  inhumanly  set 
ashore,  on  a  barren  spot,  and  distant  from  any  settlement  !"* 
The  deportation  had  been  effected  with  such  complete  success, 
that  one  of  them  died  on  the  passage,  and  it  was  only  the 
corpse  of  the  Abbe  Bachelot  which  was  carried  to  land. 

In  this  first  combat  the  Protestant  missionaries  gained  an 
easy  triumph.  But  the  day  arrived,  which  they  should  have 
foreseen,  when  they  were  summoned  to  justify  an  action  which 
France  was  not  unlikely  to  chastise,  and  which  all  that  was 
noble  in  England  and  America  condemned.  Their  defence 
contained  only  two  pleas — the  first,  that  the  violence  was  the 
act  of  the  native  authorities ;  the  second,  that  the  Catholic 
missionaries  were  justly  banished,  because  "permission  from 
the  government  to  remain  had  never  been  obtained,  or  even 
asked. "f  With  respect  to  the  latter  statement,  we  do  not  read 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  that  St.  Paul  was  accustomed  to 
"ask  permission"  from  the  heathen  to  preach  Christ  to  them, 
or  that  he  refrained  when  forbidden  to  do  so. 

It  is  true  that  it  was  once  made  a  reproach  to  the  Master 
Himself,  u  contradicit  Ccesari  /"  but  it  was  reserved  for  Prot- 
estant missionaries  to  rebuke  His  servants  for  presuming  to 
preach  the  Gospel  without  having  first  obtained  the  permission 
of  that  pitiful  caricature  of  Caesar,  the  King  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands.  Mr.  Mark  Wilks — who  eagerly  defends  them,  and 
observes,  with  a  well-timed  pleasantry,  that  their  Catholic  rivals 
"were  conveyed  to  the  diocese  of  California" — gravely  affirms, 
that  the  latter  ought  to  have  obeyed  the  Polynesian  magistracy, 
and  that  it  was  "  shameless  effrontery  to  set  its  laws  and  police 
at  defiance.";):  The  Jews,  who  imprisoned  St.  Peter  and 
scourged  St.  Paul,  were  probably  of  the  same  opinion,  and 
chastised  the  "shameless  effrontery"  of  those  Apostles  with  the 

*  Reynolds,  ch.  xxii..  pp.  417-18. 

f  Refutation  of  the  Charges  brougJit  ty  the  Roman  Catholics  against  the 
American  Missionaries  at  the  Sandwich  Islands,  p.  14  (Boston,  1843). 
\  Tahiti,  &c.,  by  Mark  Wilks,  p.  10  (1844). 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  527 

same  energy  which  Mr.  "Wilks  applauds  in  the  Sandwich 
Islanders. 

With  respect  to  the  plea  that  it  was  "  the  authorities  who 
banished  them,  we  may  leave  the  answer  to  Protestant  writers. 

Dr.  Ruschenberger,  who  had  discussed  the  matter  with 
Bingham,  who  was  the  real  "government,"  writes  with  the 
candor  of  an*  educated  and  liberal  American.  "A  leading 
member  of  the  mission  told  me,"  he  says,  "  he  had  no  doubt 
but  that  answers  which  he  gave  to  questions  on  the  subject  by 
the  chiefs  had  very  considerable  influence  upon  their  determi- 
nation  It  is  clear  to  my  mind  that  the  missionaries  em- 
braced every  opportunity  to  present  the  Roman  Catholics  in 
the  hideous  aspect  in  which  they  themselves  view  them.  I  am 
convinced  that  the  missionaries  were  the  cause  of  their  expul- 
sion."* Sir  George  Simpson  also  says  :  "Some  of  the  Protest- 
ant missionaries  were,  beyond  all  doubt,  chiefly  responsible ;" 
and  he  adds  that  it  was  not  bigotry  alone  which  influenced  them, 
but  that  "there  is  strong  reason  for  suspecting  that  their  real 
motives  were  in  a  great  measure  secular."f  Mr.  Gerstaecker, 
though  unfriendly  to  the  Catholic  missionaries,  declares  without 
hesitation  of  the  same  proceedings,  "  the  Protestant  preachers, 
in  their  mad,  intolerant  zeal,  excited  the  easily  moved  natives 
more  and  more  by  their  sermons ;"  and  he  evidently  agrees 
with  Sir  George  Simpson  as  to  their  motive. 

The  conflict,  of  which  we  have  seen  other  examples,  had  now 
commenced  in  earnest,  and  was  sustained  on  the  part  of  the 
Protestant  missionaries  by  actions  which  we  should  have  refused 
to  credit,  if  they  were  not  attested  by  their  own  friends.  It 
seems  impossible  that  the  scenes  which  we  are  about  to  describe 
should  have  been  enacted  in  the  nineteenth  century.  From  the 
hour  in  which  the  "little  rickety  vessel"  bore  away  to  California 
the  exiles,  of  whom  only  two  were  destined  to  reach  it  alive,  and 
who  were  inhumanly  exposed  to  such  a  fate,  as  Protestants  tell  us, 
for  no  other  crime  than  this,  that  "their  success  wras  too  great." 
Hawaii  and  all  the  islands  of  the  group  were  filled  with  the 
loud  clamor  of  their  enemies.  Europe  was  many  a  league 
across  the  sea,  and  the  avenger  seemed  to  tarry.  And  so  from 
every  hill  and  valley  went  .up  the  cry  of  rage  and  malice  against 
the  Catholic  missionaries,  whose  virtues  were  a  perpetual  rebuke, 
like  the  calm  face  of  Mordecai  standing  in  the  gate ;  as  well  as 
against  the  converts  who  had  dared  to  follow  them  for  their 
wisdom,  and  to  love  them  for  their  truth.  Protestant  writers, 
generous  and  upright  men,  declare  with  one  accord,  that  nothing 


*  Ch.  xliii.,  p.  474. 

f  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  115. 

i  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  236. 


528  CHAPTER  VI. 

could  surpass  the  atrocity  of  calumny  and  invective  of  which 
they  were  now  the  victims.  Every  pulpit  resounded  with  the 
maledictions  heaped  upon  them  ;  and  even  the  native  teachers, 
hired  for  wages  to  repeat  the  lessons  of  their  masters,  hurried 
hither  and  thither  to  re-echo  words  which  they  neither  believed 
nor  understood.  Mr.  Cheevers,  exulting  in  the  excesses  which 
he  records,  recites  the  following  extract  from  a  sermon,  probably 
of  his  own  composition,  preached  by  a  "  native  assistant  mis- 
sionary :"  "  Believe  not  that  the  Pope  is  God  ;  he  is  nothing 
but  a  man,  whose  dwelling-place  is  in  Rome."*  Such  were  the 
instructions  offered  to  the  people  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  in 
spite  of  their  urgent  need  of  other  precepts,  day  after  day,  and 
hour  after  hour,  by  lips  whose  accents  had  long  tilled  them  with 
terror  and  dismay.  They  might  mock  Christianity  by  their  lives, 
and  outrage  every  enactment  in  its  moral  code,  so  long  as  they 
consented  to  frequent  the  Protestant  chapels,  and  forfeit  their 
land  and  their  goods  to  Protestant  missionaries;  but  they  must 
at  least  hate  the  Pope,  and  learn  to  revile  his  ministers,  even 
when  inviting  them  to  virtue.  Let  crime  reign  through  all  the 
land,  as  Mr.  Hines  says,  "  from  the  hut  of  the  most  degraded 
menial  to  the  royal  palace ;"  but  let  not  the  hated  rivals  who 
had  shown  that  they  could  break  its  spell  gain  a  footing  amongst 
them ! 

Bat  it  is  time  to  speak  of  events  which,  though  cruel  and 
barbarous,  it  is  impossible  to  regard  with  unmingled  regret, 
because  they  served  to  reveal  the  character  of  the  Catholic 
converts,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  final  triumphs  of  the 
religion  wThich  had  made  them  what  they  were,  it  was  by 
their  sufferings,  according  to  the  immutable  law  of  Christian 
missions,  and  by  the  constancy  with  which  they  endured  them, 
that  thousands  were  led  to  embrace  the  faith  which  had  in- 
spired so  much  courage  and  fortitude.  Long  before  the  decisive 
act  which  led  to  the  death  of  the  Abbe  Bachelot,  the  measures 
which  the  Dutch  adopted  in  Ceylon,  and  the  English  in  Tahiti, 
had  been  employed  by  the  Americans, — not  without  indignant 
protests  from  their  countrymen, — throughout  the  Sandwich 
islands.  M.  Bachelot  himself,  not  long  before  he  com- 
menced his  last  and  fatal  voyage,  wrote  thus  to  his  friends 
in  Europe :  "  Our  Christians  continue  to  be  persecuted,  but 
in  the  chains  with  which  they  are  loaded  their  attachment 
to  the  faith  seems  to  redouble.  After  years  of  seduction 
and  violence,  during  which  our  enemies  left  no  means  un- 
tried, there  has  not  been  a  single  example  of  apostasy  amongst 
them"  Even  the  examples  which  we  have  already  seen  of 

*  The  Island  World  of  the  Pacific,  p.  157. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCKANICA. 

invincible  constancy  in  the  inhabitants  of  China,  India,  and 
Ceylon,  hardly  prepare  us  for  such  a  display  of  fortitude  in  the 
Sandwich  Islanders.  But  grace  produces  everywhere  the 
game  fruits.  M.  Bachelot  continues  as  follows  : 

"The  mode  of  puiiibiuneiit  now  adopted  is  to  have  the 
Catholics  conducted  in  chains  to  the  public  necessaries,  and  to 
oblige  them  to  remove  with  their  hands  the  most  disgusting 
ordures.  The  triumph  which  the  Methodists  seem  then  to 
enjoy  consists  in  listening  to  the  railleries  of  which  the  Catholics 
are  the  objects.  They,  however,  support  all  with  joy,  because, 
they  say,  4  religion  is  our  only  crime.'  "*  And  when  this  tale 
reached  Europe,  confirmed  by  Protestant  testimony  which  we 
will  presently  quote,  it  awakened  that  righteous  indignation  of 
which  Captain  Laplace  was  the  worthy  instrument,  and  filled 
the  sails  of  the  frigate  Artemise,  which  bore  freedom  to  the 
Hawaiian  Catholics,  in  1839,  after  thirteen  years  of  oppression 
and  servitude.  "  History  will  record,"  said  an  eloquent  French 
voice,  "  that  men  who  dared  to  call  themselves  ministers  of  a 
civilizing  religion,  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in 
the  face  of  heaven  and  earth,  condemned  Christian  females  to 
gather  up  daily  with  their  hands  the  ordures  of  a  garrison  !" 

And  these  were  not  the  only  tortures  inflicted  by  the  Protest- 
ant missionaries  upon  the  Hawaiian  natives,  who  dared  to  be- 
lieve in  the  midst  of  infidelity,  and  to  be  virtuous  when  sur- 
rounded by  corruption.  They  were  beaten,  imprisoned,  worn 
out  with  heavy  labor,  and  sometimes  starved,  but  all  in  vain. 
A  Catholic  woman  being  cruelly  beaten  with  a  stick,  because 
she  refused  to  attend  the  Protestant  worship,  her  husband  made 
this  observation,  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  historic  words 
of  the  early  confessors  :  "  Before  I  became  a  Christian  I  should 
have  thought  it  no  harm  to  revenge  my  wife,  by  killing  him- 
who  struck  her ;  but  I  was  silent,  and  recollected  that  the  first 
Christians  did  not  complain  when  their  limbs  were  cut  oif,  and 
that  they  offered  their  bodies  to  the  flames  for  Jesus  Christ." 
And  M.  Bachelot,  who  relates  this  anecdote,  adds,  "  Many  of 
the  natives  were  so  touched  by  this  example  of  truly  Christian 
patience  and  resignation,  that  they  have  asked  to  be  instructed, 
notwithstanding  the  dangers  to  which  they  are  exposed  from 
the  Protestant  ministers.  '  He  tells  us  also,  that  "  the  English' 
Consul,"  a  worthy  representative  of  his  great  nation,  "mani- 
fested his  sympathy  for  the  prisoners."  Some  he  took  under 
his  immediate  protection,  but  his  generous  aid  came  too  late, 
for  "many  of  them  died  shortly  after,  victims  of  the  hardships 
they  had  endured."f 

*  Annals,  vol.  i  ,  p.  853.  f  Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  355. 

35 


530  CHAPTER  VI. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  such  incidents  could  occur 
without  exciting  the  lively  indignation  of  the  residents  in  these 
islands.  The  mission  of  Captain  Laplace,  we  are  told,  was 
welcomed  by  them,  and  "they  enthusiastically  applauded  his 
proceedings."  "  We  are  willing  to  hope,"  they  said,  in  a  formal 
address  to  that  officer,  "that  the  horrifying  realities  of  persecution 
and  torture  for  conscience  sake,  by  your  firmness  and  justice 
will  have  been  forever  crushed."*  And  they  declared, 'in  one 
of  the  local  journals,  "We  hesitate  not  to  accuse  the  mission- 
aries of  being  the  great  first  cause  of  all  these  persecutions  of 
the  Catholics. "f  We  have  seen,  too,  in  what  terms  they  are 
noticed  both  by  English  and  American  writers.  Sir  Edward 
Belcher  has  told  us  that  "  the  tyranny  of  fanatics," — '•  illiterate 
fanatics,"  Mr.  Forbes  calls  them,  "  with  cargoes  of  Bibles  and 
religious  tracts,";): — inspired  "  disgust"  in  men  of  all  classes^ 
M.  Casimer  Henricy,  one  of  the  officers  of  the  Artem.ise,  who 
"  mingled  with  the  natives  day  and  night  in  their  huts,"  dis- 
covered that  "the  missionaries  are  cordially  detested  by  the  pop- 
ulation. Their  insatiable  cupidity  has  made  them  objects  of 
horror.  Ferocious  oppressor^,  shameless  monopolizers,  traffick- 
ing in  the  Word  of  God,  they  have  procured  for  themselves  a 
concert  of  curses."  But  they  were  wearing  out  the  patience  both 
of  God  and  man,  and  the  hour  of  their  humiliation  was  at  hand. 

An  American  Protestant  writer  informs  us,  in  1854,  that  when 
they  ventured  to  confirm  their  failing  dominion  by  the  extreme 
measure  of  forcibly  expelling  the  Catholic  missionaries,  so  great 
was  the  sympathy  in  favor  of  the  latter,  that  "  their  stay  was 
encouraged  by  the  English  and  French  officials. "§  And  so 
universal  had  this  feeling  now  become,  even  among  the  better 
class  of  Protestants, — perhaps  because  they  found  their  com- 
mercial pursuits  frustrated  by  the  jealousy  of  the  missionaries, 
who  aimed  at  keeping  the  whole  trade  of  the  islands  in  their 
own  hands,  and  after  robbing  the  natives  endeavored  to  ruin 
their  own  countrymen, — that  even  the  local  journals  began  to 
espouse  the  cause  of  the  Catholic  victims.  In  the  Protestant 
Gazette  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  of  the  29th  of  June,  1839, 
the  year  in  which  M.  Bachelot  perished,  the  following  anec- 
dote is  narrated  :  Two  native  women  being  "  accused  of  the 
crime  of  Catholicism,"  one  of  them  was  suspended  from  the 
branch  of  a  tree,  "  her  toes  scarcely  touching  the  ground,"  the 
other  to  a  projecting  beam  of  a  house,  "her  feet  tied  with  a 

*  The  Sandwich  Islands,  by  Alexander  Simpson,  Esq.,  late  H.  M.  Acting 
Consul,  ch.  iii.,  p.  18  (1843). 
|  Ibid.  ch.  iv.,  p.  30. 

t  California,  by  Alexander  Forbes,  Esq.,  ch.  v.,  p.  237. 
§  Sandwich  Island  Notes,  by  A.  Haole,  p.  55  (1854). 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  531 

chain."  For  eighteen  hours  they  were  left  in  this  condition 
when  they  were  forcibly  delivered  by  some  Europeans,  in  an 
almost  lifeless  state.  One  of  these  charitable  persons  had 
previously  gone  to  inform  Bingham,  the  missionary  dictator  of 
Hawaii,  of  what  was  taking  place.  Mr.  Bingham,  we  are  told, 
"came  in  his  coach,  but  contented  himself  with  observing,  that 
*he  would  not  interfere  with  the  execution  of  the  laws  of 
the  country.'  In  saying  this,  he  put  his  horses  to  the  trot, 
and  drove  off."*  Yet  Mr.  Bingham  has  written  a  book,  filled 
with  Scripture  texts,  from  Genesis  to  Revelations,  and  cele- 
brating his  own  exploits,  not  as  a  ruler  or  a  merchant,  but  as 
a  preacher  of  the  Gospel  and  a  minister  of  Christ. 

And  now  let  us  record  the  final  result  of  these  extraordinary 
proceedings.  In  July,  1839,  Captain  Laplace  arrived,  and  Mr. 
Bingham  and  his  friends  were  informed,  in  accents  which  they 
could  not  mistake,  that  the  Catholic  natives  of  Hawaii  had  found 
a  protector,  strong  enough  to  defend  the  oppressed  and  to  chastise 
the  oppressor.  The  patient  constancy  of  thirteen  years  was  now 
to  receive  its  due  reward.  "The  natives  who  had  been  victims 
of  persecution,"  says  Captain  Laplace,  "  and  had  confessed  their 
faith  amidst  the  most  cruel  treatment,  now  manifested  the  utmost 
joy."  But  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  as  in  the  other  groups  of 
the  South  Sea,  they  wrere  as  moderate  in  the  day  of  triumph  as 
they  had  been  resigned  in  adversity.  When  the  captain  of  the 
frigate  Allier  resolved  to  make  an  example  in  the  island  of 
Futuna,  where  Father  Chanel,  a  French  missionary,  since 
Beatified,  had  been  cruelly  murdered,  it  was  Bishop  Pompallier 
who  solemnly  protested  against  the  threatened  vengeance,  de- 
claring that  they  had  no  need  of  human  justice,  and  that  they 
would  perish  to  the  last  man  rather  than  invoke  its  aid.  And 
when  the  ship  had  departed,  her  gallant  crew  more  filled  with 
admiration  of  the  missionaries  than  hatred  of  their  cowardly 
oppressors,  Bishop  Pompallier  remained  among  the  sanguinary 
tribe,  till  he  had  converted  the  King  of  Futuna  and  the  assassin 
of  the  blessed  Father  Chanel,  and  baptized  one  hundred  and 
fourteen  of  his  subjects  with  his  own  liand.f  At  the  present 
day,  Futuna  is  said  to  be  not  only  wholly  Christian,  but  to 
present  the  most  extraordinary  example  in  the  Pacific  of  com- 
plete and  effectual  conversion,  in  its  largest  sense4 

But  it  was  not  the  Catholic  natives  only  who  were  now  re- 
leased from  their  bonds,  and  able  at  length  to  worship  the  God 
of  Christians  in  peace  and  security  ;  the  Protestants  also,  profit- 


*  Quoted  in  the  Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  530. 

j  Annals,  vol.  iv.,  p.  831. 

|  New  Glories  of  tJie  Catholic  Ghurch,  ch.  v.,  p.  254. 


532  CHAPTER   VI. 

ing  by  the  interference  of  Lord  George  Paulet  and  others,  threw 
off  the  hated  yoke  of  the  missionaries,  and  solaced  their  long  pri- 
vations by  one  immense  and  frantic  debauch.  They  also  had  a 
season  of  joy,  but  it  was  the  joy  of  animals,  not  of  Christian  con- 
fessors, who  had  earned,  by  patient  endurance  in  trial,  the  right 
to  sing  a  canticle  of  praise  and  thanksgiving.  And  now  the  con- 
ditions of  the  conflict  which  had  lasted  so  long  were  no  longer 
the  same.  The  missionaries  of  the  Cross  went  about  their  work 
in  peace,  and  Protestants  will  tell  us  how  they  prospered.  They 
were  still  feeble  in  all  human  resources,  but  upon  these  they 
were  not  accustomed  to  rely.  The  Yicar  Apostolic  of  Eastern 
Oceanica  wrote  gayly  from  the  Gambier  Islands,  in  1837,  in 
these  words :  "  During  the  first  years  of  the  mission  we  lay  upon 
hurdles,  and  had  no  other  seats  than  blocks  of  stone,  or  trunks 
of  trees.  I  administered  baptism  in  one  of  our  chapels  to  eighty 
persons,  and  during  the  ceremony  used  for  my  episcopal  throne 
the  backbone  of  a  whale."*  "The  priests  are  fortunate,"  he 
added,  "when  they  can  find  time  to  mend  their  clothes  and 
wash  their  linen."  And  six  years  later,  in  1843,  when  the 
bishop  visited  Fathers  Chevron  and  Grange  at  Tongataboo,  "  the 
destitution  in  which  we  found  them  drew  tears  from  our  eyes." 
At  Wallis  also,  "  we  found  Father  Bataillon,"  afterwards  bishop, 
"  without  hat  and  without  shoes,  having  only  miserable  clothes 
in  rags."f  And  then  they  embraced,  like  St.  Paul  and  his 
fellow-missionaries,  and  went  on  their  way  rejoicing. 

They  had  reason  to  rejoice,  for  all  their  desires  were  accom- 
plished ;  and  in  bringing  this  chapter  to  a  close,  we  will  now 
briefly  describe  the  results  which  they  have  already  obtained. 
Let  us  begin  with  Honolulu,  because  it  is  the  principal  city  of 
that  Hawaiian  group  which  Protestantism  had  made  its  own, 
but  in  which  Catholics  had  purchased,  by  patient  suffering, 
the  right  to  a  final  and  undisputed  triumph. 

In  1847,  Sir  George  Simpson,  a  Protestant  writer,  and  a 
British  official,  who  had  closely  watched  their  operations  in  other 
lands,  gives  this  report : '"  In  addition  to  being  engaged  in  build- 
ing a  large  cathedral,  the  reverend  Fathers  kept  two  schools, 

*  Vol.  i.,  p.  233. 

f  Vol.  vi.,  p.  28.  Dr.  Sclierzer,  noticing  "  the  great  resources  at  the  disposal 
of  the  Protestant  missionaries"  in  the  Pacific,  their  "  dwelling-houses  imported 
ready-made,"  and  their  enormous  expenditure,  exclaims,  "  What  a  gratifying 
contrast  to  the  wretched  appliances  with  which  Catholic  over-sea  missions  are 
compelled  to  eke  out  a  precarious  existence."  Voyage  of  the  Novara,  vol.  ii., 
ch.  xvi.,  p.  565.  "  Do  not  possess  gold,"  was  the  injunction  of  our  Blessed 
Lord  to  the  first  Christian  missionaries,  "  nor  silver,  nor  money  in  your  purses, 
nor  scrip  for  your  journey,  nor  two  coats,  nor  shoes,  nor  a  staff."  St.  Matt. 
x.  9,  10.  The  equipment  of  Protestant  missionaries,  as  Dr.  Scherzer  remarks, 
is  "  in  gratifying  contrast"  with  thee-e  "  wretched  appliances." 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  533 

which  were  attended  by  about  nine  hundred  young  people  of 
both  sexes,  natives  and  hall-breeds ;  and  many  of  the  pupils 
had  made  great  progress  in  various  branches  of  education,  while 
a  few  of  them  spoke  French  with  considerable  fluency.  The 
new  faith  was  daily  extending  its  influence  among  tJie  natives, 
through  the  untiring  zeal  of  its  teachers;  but  though  it  was  no 
longer  exposed  to  legal  persecution,  yet  it  was  still  subjected  to 
the  rude  anathemas,  spoken  and  written,  of  the  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries. We  had  a  good  deal  of  intercourse  with  the  priests, 
visiting  their  schools  and  occasionally  attending  their  chapel, 
and  were,  on  the  whole,  strongly  prepossessed  in  their  favor."* 

Perhaps  it  is  due  to  this  generous  Protestant  to  confirm  his 
account  by  at  least  a  specimen  of  the  language  which  the  baffled 
missionaries  now  habitually  used.  At  an  earlier  period,  while 
they  still  hoped  to  banish  the  Catholic  missionaries  by  violence, 
they  had  gravely  reported  to  their  employers  :  "  It  is  matter  of 
devout  thankfulness  that  the  islanders  are  so  well  prepared  for 
these  events  by  the  extensive  prevalence  of  piety  among  them," 
— though  they  probably  smiled  at  one  another  as  they  wrote  it. 
A  little  later,  they  begin  to  change  their  tone,  and  tell  their 
paymasters,  "  We  are  unable  to  measure  the  disastrous  conse- 
quences which  have  resulted,  and  which  will  continue  to  flow, 
from  the  introduction  of"  the  Catholic  missionaries,  "and  their 
efforts  among  this  people.  We  mourn  that  any  of  our  flocks 
4  are  so  soon  turned  aside  into  another  gospel,'  but  this  has  been 
permitted  by  the  great  Head  of  the  Church  for  wise  and  holy 
purposes."  At  last  they  lay  aside  all  restraint.  "  They  have 
wandered  after  the  Beast,"  is  now  their  account  of  the  natives 
who  were  deserting  them  in  thousands.  "As  the  Man  of  Sin 
advances,"  they  say  in  one  of  their  official  reports,  "he develops 

more  and  more  of  his  real  character But  his  days  are 

numbered:  his  bounds  are  fixed;  beyond  these  he  cannot  pass." 
If  they  purchase  the  temporary  return  of  one  or  two  of  their 
fugitive  disciples,  they  cry  out,  "  They  have  escaped  out  of 
Sodom  !"  And  then  these  men,  fed  with  the  spoils  of  their  un- 
willing hearers,  and  whose  own  religion  was  perhaps  the  least 
attractive  caricature  of  Christianity  which  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  say  of  the  Catholic  Faith,  "  The  spread  of  this  heresy 
amongst  us  has  a  tendency  to  humble  our  hearts,  "f  Sir  George 
Simpson  does  not  appear  to  have  done  them  any  injustice. 

A  little  earlier,  Mr.  Forbes,  also  a  Protestant  writer,  con- 
trasting with  much  animation  the  two  classes  of  missionaries, 
whose  proceedings  he  also  had  diligently  and  honestly  compared 

*  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  113. 

f  Missionary  Herald,  vol.  xxxviii.,  pp.  480-81. 


534:  CHAPTER  VI. 

in  various  regions,  commends  the  paternal  wisdom  of  the 
Catholic  pastor,  "  indulging  the  innocent  foibles  and  propensi- 
ties of  the  natives  ;"  and  then  notices  "  the  sour,  ascetic  Meth- 
odist, who  takes  from  his  own  followers,"  but  not  from  himself, 
"  all  their  pastimes  and  pleasures ;  but  it  must  be  admitted," 
he  adds,  "  that  the  contrast  in  the  numerical  results  of  their 
conversions  is  no  less  striking."  The  Protestant,  this  traveller 
says,  "  takes  away  the  few  comforts  the  poor  savage  enjoyed — 
and  what  does  he  give  him  in  return  ?  Why,  he  promises  him, 
that  if  he  lay  aside  the  song  and  the  dance,  foregoes  all  pleasure 
and  mirth,  puts  on  a  sour  instead  of  a  laughing  countenance, 
attends  to  the  rhapsody  of  the  preacher — then  he  promises,  that 
he  may  perhaps  escape  from  being  damned  forever,  and  avoid 
passing  his  eternity  amid  tire  and  brimstone  prepared  for  him 
in  the  world  to  come."*  And  this  somewhat  grotesque  picture, 
as  Dr.  Huschenberger  allows,  "  is  no  sketch  of  fancy,"  but  an 
exact  image  of  what  met  the  eye  and  ear  of  English  and 
American  travellers,  wherever  they  directed  their  course  among 
the  islands  of  the  Pacific. 

In  1849,  we  have  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Walpole,  who  arrived 
after  the  epoch  of  persecution  had  come  to  an  end.  After 
describing  the  Protestant  church,  he  says,  "  In  the  town  now 
stands  a  Roman  Catholic  cathedral,"  the  building  of  which  Sir 
George  Simpson  had  marked  the  rapid  progress  ;  "  and  I  much 
fear  the  congregation  of  the  one  tends  dcvlly  more  and  more  to  the 
other.  Of  the  Abbe,  who  is  at  the  head  of  the  Roman  Church 
here,  no  eulogy  would  be  too  high.  Their  schools  are  excellent, 

and  they  invite  scrutiny They  have  now  about  twdve 

thousand  converts  /  one  hundred  schools;  three  thousand  pupils. 
Most  earnestly  is  it  to  be  hoped,  that  by  strict  purifi- 
cation of  themselves,  and  more  strenuous  exertions  towards  the 
natives,  the  teachers  of  the  pure  Gospel  will  endeavor  to  regain 
the  ground  they  have  lost."f 

And  now  we  have  heard  enough  of  the  Sandwich  Islands. 
Here  was  the  result  of  thirty  years  of  Protestant  effort,  and  to 
this  bitter  humiliation, — the  scorn  and  compassion  of  their  own 
friends, — the  "  teachers  of  the  pure  Gospel,"  as  Mr.  Wnlpole 
calls  them,  had  come  at  last.  "  In  this  single  island,"  says  a 
Catholic  missionary, — and  after  hearing  so  many  Protestant  wit- 
nesses, we  may  well  claim  to  listen  to  one  at  least  of  our  own, — 
"more  than  live  thousand  persons  have,  within  twelve  months, 
forsaken  the  ways  of  error  to  follow  those  of  truth."  And  then 


*  California,  p.  244. 

f  Oh.  xi.,  p.  249.    Cf.  The  Natural  History  of  tJie  Varieties  of  Man,  by  R.  G. 
Latham,  M.D.,  p.  201. 


MISSIONS  IN   OCEANICA.  535 

he  speaks,  not  with  anger,  but  with  a  kind  of  gentle  compas- 
sion of  his  mortified  rivals  reaping  at  length  the  fruits  which 
they  had  improvidently  sown  ;  and  seems  almost  to  pity  men 
who,  "after  such  vast  sums  had  been  expended  during  many 
years,  saw  what  they  used  to  call  their  Model-Mission  more 
than  half  overturned,  in  so  short  a  time,  by  a  few  poor  mission- 
aries, destitute  of  every  thing,  and  without  any  other  support 
than  the  Cross  of  their  Divine  Master."  And  if  the  evidence 
of  this  victim  of  their  cruelty  be  deemed  insufficient,  here  is 
their  own  account,  addressed  to  the  missionary  society  in 
America,  of  the  same  facts. 

In  1845,  they  had  confessed,  "the  number  of  Hawaiians 
baptized  by  the  Roman  priests  is  twelve  thousand  five  hundred, 
besides  some  in  a  course  of  preparatory  training  ;"*  and  at 
another  date  they  gave  the  following  details.  "In  the, districts 
of  Koria  and  Waimea  on  Hawaii  the  Papists  number  many 
converts  and  boast  great  things.  On  Kanai  the  excitement  in 
consequence  of  the  spread  of  Romanism  is  considerable.  Two 
priests  are  there  laboring  with  indefatigable  zeal,  and  we  are 
sorry  to  say  they  have  a  good  deal  of  success.  .  .  .  On  the 
Niihau,  where  there  is  a  population  of  about  one  thousand,  it 
is  said  a  considerable  number  of  the  people  have  joined  them. 
On  Oahu  they  number  many  followers,  and  in  the  districts  of 
Waialma,  Waianae,  and  Koolauloa  it  is  thought  that  nearly 
one-third  of  the  population  have  gone  after  them."f 


WALLTS    AXD  GAMBIER    ISLANDS. 

But  it  was  not  only  in  the  Society  and  Sandwich  Islands, 
with  whose  religious  history  we  are  now  sufficiently  acquainted, 
that  the  Catholic  missionaries  had  defended  their  Master's 
cause.  In  the  Philippines,  as  we  have  seen,  they  had  carried 
His  cross  triumphantly  through  the  ranks  of  Pagan  and  Ma- 
hometan legions ;  in  all  the  other  groups  they  had  used  it  as  a 
sword  to  resist  the  cruelties  of  mercenary  zealots.  And  every- 
where the  result  was  the  same.  From  Tahiti,  we  have  been 
told,  they  were  transported  to  the  savage  shores  of  Wallis 
Island,  where  it  was  hoped  they  might  find  an  obscure  and  un- 
known grave.  Yain  project !  and  cruel  as  it  was  vain.  In 
184-1,  Father  Bataillon  could  report,  that  "out  of  two  thousand 
three  hundred  inhabitants  which  the  island  of  Wallis  contains 

*  United  States  Amencmi  Board  for  Foreign  Missions,  Reports,  p.  186. 
f  Missionary  Herald,  vol.  xxxviii.,  p.  473. 


536  CHAPTER   VI. 

two  thousand  are  already  converted."  And  in  the  following 
year  his  report  is  in  these  words.  "The  bishop,  Monseigneur 
Pompallier,  is  about  to  quit  ns,  after  having  baptized  and  con- 
iirmed  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  island.  Glory  and  benediction 
be  given  to  the  infinite  mercy  of  God  !  Thanks  be  rendered  to 
Mary,  our  august  Queen,  to  whom,  immediately  on  my  arrival 
in  the  island,  I  consecrated  it.  This  island,  but  lately  aban- 
doned to  the  most  ridiculous  superstitions,  to  the  grossest  vices, 
now  adores  the  only  true  God,  the  Creator  of  heaven  and  earth, 
and  the  one  only  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son.  The  conver- 
sion of  Ouvea  is,  in  my  opinion,  one  of  the  greatest  prodigies 
of  our  time.  It  was,  according  to  the  account  of  everybody, 
the  wickedest  island  of  Oceanica.  .  .  .  How  great  is  God  in 
His  works !  How  do  the  weakest  instruments  become  strong 
in  His  hands ! " 

In  the  same  year,  Father  Chevron,  whose  apostolic  destitu- 
tion forced  tears  from  the  eyes  of  his  bishop,  says :  "  A  living 
faith,  an  ardent  charity,  extreme  delicacy  of  conscience,  and  an 
insatiable  avidity  for  the  Word  of  God,  such  are  the  virtues 
which  we  see  flourishing  here.  The  natives  pass  half  their 
nights  in  prayer,  in  mutual  instruction,  in  the  singing  of  canti- 
cles, and  in  reciting  the  rosary.  Their  ardor  in  the  exercise  of 
piety  is  solely  the  effect  of  grace." 

Towards  the  close  of  the  same  year,  Father  Yiard,  afterwards 
bishop,  mentions  that  sixty  natives  of  Wallis,  who  had  been 
absent  two  years,  and  had  been  baptized  by  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries in  another  island,  returned,  under  the  guidance  of  a 
chief  who  was  the  brother  of  the  king.  They  were  full  of 
malice  and  calumnies  against  the  Catholic  religion,  of  which 
they  knew  only  what  the  Protestant  ministers  had  told  them ; 
but  Father  Viard  adds,  "Several  of  these  erring  islanders  have 
already  been  converted."  Of  the  king  himself,  Father  Chevron 
relates  that  he  said  to  Bishop  Bataillon,  "I  thank  thee  for  thy 
affection  towards  me.  I  was  ignorant.  I  repulsed  thee.  I 
wished  to  drive  thee  away.  But  thou  didst  love  us.  Thou  hast 
taken  patience ;  thou  hast  suffered  much.  I  thank  thee.  In  say- 
ing these  words  large  tears  filled  his  eyes.  How  powerful  is  grace! 
Platens  est  Deus  de  lapidibus  istis  suscitare  filios  Abrahm" 

At  the  end  of  1861,  wre  have  the  following  report  by  Bishop 
Bataillon  on  the  islands  of  Ouvea  and  Futuna,  in  which  he  had 
just  terminated  his  second  arduous  visitation  of  the  whole  of  his 
vast  diocese:  "The  general  state,  thank  God,  is  more  satis- 
factory than  ever.  Paganism  is  forgotten.  Christian  customs 
have  been  adopted ;  the  benefits  of  civilization,  without  its  vices, 
are  progressing  slowly  and  steadily."  At  Ouvea,  after  a  spirit- 
ual "  Retreat,"  conducted  under  the  eyes  of  the  bishop,  "  eighteen 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  537 

hundred,  which  number  included  every  adult  on  the  island, 
without  one  exception,  received  Holy  Communion."* 

In  the  Gambier  Islands  equally  auspicious  results  followed 
the  patient  labors  of  the  missionaries.  A  few  words  will  suffice 
to  describe  them.  The  Holy  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  was  offered 
for  the  first  time  in  this  group  on  the  15th  of  August,  1834 ; 
and  by  the  9th  of  May,  1835,  almost  all  the  inhabitants  had 
been  converted  and  baptized.  In  1851,  a  Protestant  writer,  a 
friend  of  Mr.  Pritchard  of  Tahiti,  thus  attests,  in  characteristic 
language,  this  surprising  fact.  "  Within  the  last  seven  years, 
three  French  missionaries,  of  the  Papal  persuasion,  have  estab- 
lished themselves  upon  the  island  of  Mangareva;  and  the 
control  they  have  contrived  to  acquire  over  the  simple  inhabi- 
tants must  be  seen  to  be  believed ;  it  is  so  absolute,  that  their 
very  movements  appear  to  be  guided  by  what  the  missionaries 
would  think  of  them."f 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  this  gentleman  should  notice, 
what  he  probably  did  not  know,  that  in  these  islands  is  wit- 
nessed one  of  those  marvellous  triumphs  of  religion,  which 
Protestants  do  not  pretend  to  emulate  even  at  home,  much 
less  among  savages,  and  which  only  the  immense  power  of 
Divine  grace  can  explain.  In  1841,  six  years  after  their  con- 
version, these  islands  had  already  produced  a  large  number  of 
those  peculiar  "  spouses  of  Christ,"  whose  glorious  privilege  it 
is  to  be  united  to  Him  by  a  kind  of  sacramental  marriage. 
"They  now  amount  to  fifty-three,  and  are  entirely  separated 
from  the  rest  of  the  natives.  For  nearly  five  years  they  have 
continued  to  live  in  the  most  edifying  manner.  Five  schools  are 
kept  by  them  in  the  great  island  ;  amongst  the  boarders  are  all 
the  young  girls  of  the  royal  family ."J  Who  will  refuse  to 
praise  God  for  such  a  fact  ?  the  crowning  token  and  evidence  of 
the  working  of  His  Holy  Spirit.  A  false  religion  can  indeed 
produce,  at  particular  epochs,  a  few  simulated  "religious,"  of 
whom  the  best  always  end  by  becoming  Catholics ;  while  the 
rest  are  of  that  class  of  whom  the  great  Bishop  of  Hippo  speaks 
as  "  hcereticce  sanctimoniales"  and  whom,  with  all  the  weight 
of  his  great  authority,  he  solemnly  charges  to  bear  in  mind  that 
"an  obedient  wife  is  better  than  a  disobedient  virgin. "§ 


*  Annals,  ch.  xxiii.,  p.  350.  The  bishop  adds,  "Our  fellow-passengers  are 
generally  English  Protestants,  who,  far  from  being  disagreeable  to  us,  are,  on 
the  contrary,  most  obliging  and  courteous." 

f  Rowings  in  the  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  ch.  XL.  p.  284.  "In  modo  che  nel  1888  non 
eravi  piii  un  pagano."  Wittman,  Storia  Unwersale  delle  Catioliche  Mimonit 
vol.  i.,  cap.  iv.,  p.  162  (Milano,  1843). 

\  Annals,  ii.,  255. 

§  In  Psal.  xlv.,  torn,  iv.,  p.  564. 


538  CHAPTER   VI. 

"  I  am  sure,"  says  the  Vicar  Apostolic,  in  a  letter  to  the 
Superioress  of  the  Convent  of  the  Sacred  Heart  in  Paris, 
"that  }ou  would  recognize  in  the  greater  number  of  these 
young  persons  sufficient  obedience  and  piety  to  form  excellent 
novices.  I  know  not  whether  you  have  amongst  your  own 
children  any  of  more  grave  or  modest  deportment.  We  do 
not  seem  to  attach  any  importance  to  their  pious  assemblies, 
but  we  often  admire  the  virtue  and  angelic  purity  of  these 
young  hearts  which  have  received  in  baptism  a  new  creation. 
Of  what  is  not  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  capable!" 

It  is  not  surprising  that  missionaries  who  could  convert  even 
the  pagan  savages  of  the  Pacilic  into  humble  and  devout  re- 
ligious, capable  of  choosing  Mary's  "  good  part,"  and  of  dwell- 
ing alone,  in  secrecy  and  silence,  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  should 
find  no  difficulty  in  teaching  the  same  class  those  ecclesiastical 
principles  which  the  best  order  of  Protestant  ministers  pro- 
claim in  vain  to  educated  hearers  in  England  and  America.  A 
young  native  of  Oahu,  who  had  made  some  progress  in  Latin 
composition,  wrote' a  letter  to  the  Superior  of  a  religious  com- 
munity in  Paris,  in  which,  after  contrasting  the  success  of  his 
Catholic  teachers  with  the  convulsive  but  sterile  efforts  of  the 
Protestants,  he  added  this  explanation  :  "It  is  because  the  net 
of  St.  Peter  is  lit  to  catch  the  tish.  The  net  of  the  heretics 
takes  nothing,  because  Jesus  Christ  does  not  assist  their  fishing, 
and  has  not  entered  their  bark."*  Such  is  the  reflection  of  a 
converted  savage  on  the  contrast  which  only  Divine  grace 
could  have  taught  him  to  appreciate. 

In  the  island  of  Akaman,  Father  Honore  Laval  relates  that 
a  chief  who  had  heard  that  a  Protestant  missionary  was  coming 
from  another  island,  informed  him  how  he  proposed  to  deal  with 
the  expected  emissary:  "I  will  ask  him  who  sent  him?  If  he 
does  not  say,  l  Gregory,' " — the  Pope  who  had  sent  the  French 
missionaries — "I  will  say,  Begone,  you  are  no  missionary  of 
Jesus  Christ.  I  shall  ask  him,  in  the  next  place,  to  whom  do 
those  children  and  that  woman  belong?  He  will  answer, They 
are  mine.  Begone,  I  will  say,  you  are  no  missionary.  Jesus 
Christ  had  no  wife,  and  his  missionaries  have  none.  We  are 
the  children  of  Peter,  and  you  are  only  a  man  like  us/'f  It  is 
probable  that  this  worthy  chief  was  wholly  ignorant  of  the  fact 
that  he  was  closely  following  the  advice  of  no  less  a  person  than 
St.  Francis  of  Sales,  who,  long  before  the  Gambler  Islands  had 
been  discovered,  gave  this  exhortation  from  his  pulpit:  iw  O  mes 
freres,  tenez  cette  preuve  pour  fon  dam  en  tale,  et  demandez  a 


*  Annals,  ii.,  258. 

f  Annales,  tome  ix.,  p.  156. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCEANICA.  539 

cenx  qui  vous  veulent  retirer  du  sein  de  PEglise:  Quis  te 
misit?"* 


8AMOAN   GROUP. 

The  Samoan  mission  has  found  a  sufficiently  candid  historian 
in  a  gentleman  who  witnessed  its  origin,  and  described,  twenty 
years  later,  its  climax.  The  first  results  of  Protestant  teaching 
in  this  group,  according  to  the  Itev.  George  Turner,  who 
writes  on  the  whole  with  creditable  sobriety,  were  precisely 
what  might  be  expected  from  the  influence  of  a  purely  human 
religion,  which  borrows  from  Christianity  only  words  and 
names,  and  offers  to  its  neophytes  precepts  divorced  from 
doctrines,  and  doctrines  which  lose  all  their  power  and  signifi- 
cance, because  others,  with  which  they  are  divinely  interwoven, 
are  suppressed  or  denied.  The  Samoans,  or  at  least  a  fraction 
of  their  number,  consented  to  abandon  paganism,  but  in  accept- 
ing wliat  they  called  the  "foreign"  religion,  claimed  the  right 
of  subjecting  it  to  indefinite  modifications.  In  this  respect 
they  may  be  said  to  have  become  genuine  Protestants.  "  Don't 
speak  to  me,"  was  a  common  retort  of  the  earlier  disciples, 
when  the  missionaries  attempted  to  restrain  their  exuberant 
fancy,  "  i  have  got  a  foreign  religion  as  well  as  you.  Mine  is 
as  good  as  yours.  Attend  to  your  own  soul,  I  am  attending  to 
rnine."t  One  of  them,  who  spent  a  year  or  two,  after  his  "  con- 
version," on  board  a  whaling-ship,  returned  to  his  island  with 
a  large  accession  of  the  self-esteem  which  foreign  travel  some- 
times creates.  "  He,  too,"  says  Mr.  Turner,  whose  companions 
were  considerably  embarrassed  by  these  rival  teachers,  "  must 
set  up  his  foreign  religion.  Although  further  from  the  truth 
than  ever,  this  fellow  got  a  surprising  number  of  adherents." 
After  a  while  they  professed  to  have  our  Lord  among  them, 
"dwelling  in  the  body  of  an  old  woman,"  and  by  other  blas- 
phemous absurdities  did  credit  to  their  profession  of  Protest- 
antism. And  so  incapable  was  the  feeble  religion  of  which 
Mr.  Turner  appears  to  have  been  the  chief  exponent  of  exor- 
cising the  fantastic  spirit's  which  it  had  awakened  to  activity, 
that  twenty  years  later,  by  his  own  confession,  their  power  still 
baffled  his  art.  "To  this  day"  he  says,  after  receiving 
Protestant  counsels  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  "  some  of  the 
people  are  still  led  on,  by  native  religious  pretenders,  into  all 


*  Sermon  pour  le  Dimanche  de  la  Septuagesime,  (Euvres,  tome  ii.,  p.  56. 
f  Nineteen  Years  in  Polynesia^  by  the  Kev.  George  Turner,  of  the  London 
Missionary  Society,  ch.  xi.,  p.  109. 


640  CHAPTER  VI. 

sorts  of  extravagances  and  absurdities,  the  blind  literally  lead 
ing  the  blind." 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  volume  published  by  this  gentle- 
man, without  seeing,  on  the  one  hand,  abundant  tokens  of 
amiable  feeling  and  benevolent  intention,  and  on  the  other, 
undesigned  evidence  of  the  incapacity  of  such  human  graces  to 
effect  the  conquest  of  souls.  It  is  enough  to  refer  to  his  own 
candid  summary,  in  .1861,  of  the  results  actually  accomplished, 
after  twenty  years  of  unceasing  effort  and  immense  expenditure. 
Ten  Protestant  missionaries,  working  simultaneously,  with 
unlimited  material  resources,  and  aided  by  an  army  of  two 
hundred  and  thirty-one  "native  teachers  or  assistants,"  whose 
services  they  were  rich  enough  to  recompense, — schools  estab- 
lished in  every  district,  with  solid  inducements  to  invite  attend- 
ance, and  other  institutions  created  by  the  lavish  contributions 
which  constantly  flowed  in  from  English  sources, — such  was 
the  machinery  employed  during  tw?enty  successive  years  for 
christianizing  the  Samoan  islanders.  And  this,  according  to 
Mr.  Turner's  own  account,  was  the  final  result.  Out  of  a  gross 
population  of  sixty -five  thousand  five  hundred  souls,  forty-five 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty-seven  were  still  avowed 
pagans  !  While  of  the  rest,  who  professed  different  modifica- 
tions of  the  "  foreign"  religion,  including  "  all  sorts  of  extrava- 
gances and  absurdities,"  this  missionary  adds,  "  of  these  there 
are  six  hundred  and  forty-five  church  members  !"* 

We  should  like  to  ask  this  candid  witness,  who  gives  such  a 
narrative  of  his  own  work,  and  would  be  sure  to  speak  truth- 
fully of  that  of  others,  whether  he  ever  met  a  Catholic  convert 
in  Polynesia  who  had  invented  a  religion  for  himself,  or  who 
undertook  to  teach  his  teachers  ?  and  whether  he  knows  a  sin- 
gle island,  evangelized  by  Catholic  missionaries,  in  which,  after 
the  toil  of  twenty  years,  there  remain  ninety-nine  hundredths  of 
the  population  unconverted? 


FIGIAN    GROUP. 


In  the  Figian  Islands,  of  which  the  proposed  cession  to  the 
Crown  of  England  has  lately  excited  some  interest,  missionary 
operations  were  commenced  by  the  Wesley  ans  in  1822.  After 
the  labor  of  forty  years,  and  an  expenditure  of  eighty  thousand 
pounds,  Colonel  Smythe  reported  officially  to  the  Colonial  Secre- 
tary, in  1861,  that  "  of  the  native  population,  less  than  one-third 

*  Nineteen  Tears  in  Polynesia,  by  the  Rev.  George  Turner,  of  the  London 
Missionary  Society,  ch.  xi.,  p.  106  ;  cli.  xxxv.,  p.  533. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  541 

profess  the  Christian  religion  ;  among  the  remainder  cannibal- 
ism, strangulation  of  widows,  infanticide,  and  other  enormities, 
prevail  to  a  frightful  extent." 

Of  the  nominal  converts,  it  is  not  easy  to  form  any  exact  es- 
timate. Mr.  Berth  old  Seemann,  a  warm  advocate  of  the  mis- 
sionaries, speaks  in  general  terms  of  their  "  success,"  but  does 
riot  quote  a  single  fact,  beyond  the  partial  abandonment  of  bar- 
barous customs  and  occasional  attendance  at  chapel,  which  can 
be  taken  to  prove  it.  On  the  contrary,  while  he  notices  that 
"many  of  the  most  efficient  teachers  employed  by  the  mission- 
aries are  Tonguese,"  natives  of  Tonga,  he  adds  that,  u  their 
conduct  has  often  been  in  direct  contradiction  to  their  profession 
of  Christianity."  He  heard  one  of  the  most  active  of  their 
number  preach,  and  observes:  "  It  would  have  been  hardly  pos- 
sible to  preach  a  more  impracticable  sermon,  or  exhibit  worse 
taste  or  less  discretion."  Yet  this  man  was  what  he  calls  an 
"  accredited"  Protestant  missionary.  The  chief,  Ritova,  Mr. 
Seemann  says,  "had  evidently  sought  to  arrive  at  some  solution 
respecting  the  conflicting  views  rival  denominations  presented 
to  him,"  but  had  not  yet  found  it.  The  population  of  Kadaou, 
he  relates,  "have  nominally  become  Christians,"  and  this  seems 
to  be  what  he  understands  by  "  success."  The  people  of  Buretu, 
he  adds,  "  embraced  Christianity,  but  when  at  a  subsequent 
date  the  town  rebelled  against  Ban,"  the  capital  of  Figi,  "they 
became  apostates  ;  nor  did  the  restoration  of  peace  make  them 
relinquish  their  pagan  religion,  and  they  had,  at  the  time  of  our 
visit,  one  of  the  finest  temples  in  the  whole  group."  Kuruduada, 
"  the  great  chief  of  Navua,"  though  he  rather  favored  than  op- 
posed Christianity,  told  Mr.  Seemann  that  "  there  were  very 
few  true  Christians  in  the  group,  and  he  hated  hypocrisy." 
Finally,  after  describing  the  total  failure  of  the  Protestants  at 
Rotuma,  and  the  apostasy  of  their  few  disciples,  he  adds,  "The 
French  have  been  more  successful  in  the  neighboring  island 
of  Fotuna,  where  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  established  a 
flourishing  mission. 

On  the  whole,  we  seem  to  encounter  in  this  group  the  usual 
facts, — immense  cost,  and  superficial  success ;  and  while  Mr. 
Seemann  notices  that  the  Wesleyan  Missionary  Society  derive 
a  revenue  of  one  thousand  two  hundred  pounds  a  year  from  the 
sale  of  cocoa-nut  oil,  he  adds  the  characteristic  statement,  that 
"Mr.  Binner,  Wesleyan  training-master,  owns  large  tracts  of 
land,  and  a  great  many  small  islands."* 


*  Viti :  an  Account  of  a  Government  Mission  to  the  Figian  Islands,  by  Bei* 
thold  Seemann,  Ph.  D.,  F.L.S.,  F.R.G.S.,  cli.  ii.,  p.  35  ;  ch.  vi.,  p.  105  ;  ch.  viii, 
p.  185  ;  ch.  xv.,  p.  266  ;  ch.  xx.,  p.  411  ;  app.,  pp.  422-428. 


64:2  CHAPTER  VI. 


OTHER    ISLAND    GROUPS. 

We  have  almost  completed  our  history,  in  which  there  is  no 
variation  from  the  first  to  the  last  page.  In  the  Marquesas,  Dr. 
Russell  confessed,  in  1843,  that  every  Protestant  effort  had 
ended  in  utter  failure;  and  Mr.  Melville  repeats,  in  1846, 
"  The  Protestant  missions  appear  to  have  despaired  of  reclaim- 
ing these  islands  from  heathenism." 

Of  the  Church  of  England  mission  to  the  Falkland  Isles  Mr. 
Parker  Snow  says,  in  1857,  after  a  fruitless  expenditure  of  ten 
thousand  pounds,  "  I  could  not  shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that 
the  mission  was  a  failure."*  And  this  gentleman,  who  was  a 
principal  agent  of  the  mission,  was  compelled,  by  his  own  ob- 
servation, to  conclude  that  u  the  wrhole  missionary  work  seems 
to  be  a  strange  compound  of  piety  and  irreligion.  f 

At  Nukahiva,  where  Dr.  Coulter  found  three  American  mis- 
sionaries in  1844,  "  the  insults  of  the  natives  were  scarcely  en- 
durable, and  I  was  afterwards  told  that  they  were  obliged  to 
leave  it."f 

At  Upolu,  in  the  Navigator  Islands,  Mr.  D'Ewes,  after 
noticing  the  absence  of  Protestants,  describes  "  the  Catholic 
cathedral  with  a  large  establishment  and  school  attached  to  it 
that  appeared  to  be  well  attended. "§ 

The  London  Missionary  Society,  however,  inform  their  sub- 
scribers, in  1862,  that  the  only  real  Catholic  converts  are  those 
u  who  wish  to  belong  to  a  religion  that  does  not  forbid  certain 
wicked  practices  which  they  like,  and  a  few  proud,  wicked 
chiefs,  who  wish  to  distinguish  themselves  as  the  leaders  of  a 
party."  On  the  other  hand,  their  intelligent  missionary  in- 
forms them  that  he  is  progressing  as  follows :  "  I  have  talked 
within  the  last  few  weeks  with  no  less  than  ninety-two  can- 
didates. What  a  glorious  harvest  of  souls,  if  they  were  all 
truly  ^converted  to  God  !  But,  alas  !  very  many  of  them  have 
been  dismissed  with  a  sigh,  mingled  with  a  hope  that  they  will 
increase  in  Scriptural  knowledge." 

Another  missionary  gives  this  report,  in  1862,  of  Tutuila,  an 
island  in  the  same  group :  u  Some  few  additions  have  been 
made  to  the  churches,  and  also  to  the  classes  of  inquirers ;  but 

*  Two  Tears'  Cruise  off  Tierra  del  Fuego,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  271. 

f  See  Patagonian  Missionary  Society,  p,  8. 

%  Adventures  in  the  Pacific,  by  John  Coulter,  M.D.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  242  (1846), 

§  China,  &c.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  170. 


MISSIONS   IN    OCEANICA.  543 

amongst  the  Church  members  generally  there  has  been  a  man- 
ifest lack  of  spiritual  life  and  vigor."* 

In  the  Solomon  Islands,  where  Bishop  Epalle  was  martyred 
on  the  16th  of  December,  1845,  we  might  trace  the  same  facts  ; 
and  so  well  was  the  invariable  contrast  between  the  two  classes 
of  missionaries  understood,  even  by  American  Protestants,  that 
Captain  Porter,  who  visited  Madison's  Island,  where  he  char- 
itably endeavored  to  "  explain  to  the  natives  the  nature  of  the 
Christian  religion,"  frankly  says,  "  Had  a  Catholic  priest  been 
with  me  at  the  moment,  he  might  have  made  converts  of  every 
individual  in  the  valley.  "f 

In  the  great  island  of  Madagascar,  where  Protestantism  was 
represented  by  Mr.  Ellis,  the  reports  furnished  by  that  gentle- 
man rival  the  most  elaborate  fictions  of  missionary  literature. 
It  is  true  that  he  does  not  cite  a  solitary  witness  of  his  triumphs, 
which  are  attested  by  no  testimony  but  his  own  complacent 
narrative.  At  length  we  are  able  to  appreciate  the  accuracy 
of  his  story.  "  He  boasted  everywhere,"  says  a  well-known 
German  traveller,  in  1861,  who  fortunately  visited  Madagascar, 
and  obtained  the  admission  to  the  royal  presence  which  Mr. 
Ellis  ardently  coveted,  "of  the  favorable  reception  he  had  met 
with.  .  .  .  This  favor  was  so  great,  in  fact,  that  after  a  stay  of 
scarcely  four  weeks  at  Tananariva,  he  received  a  peremptory 
order  to  depart"  In  vain  he  humbly  remonstrated,  urging 
piteously  that  "  the  fever  season  was  not  yet  passed."  Neither 
this  nor  any  other  plea  availed,  and  the  triumphant  missionary 
hastened  to  England,  to  write  a  history  of  his  victories  in  Mad- 
agascar, and  to  raise  fresh  subscriptions.  At  home  Mr.  Ellis 
was  as  successful  as  gentlemen  who  possess  his  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  the  English  character  usually  are.  But  in  Madagas- 
car he  and  his  companions  appear  to  have  left  an  evil  reputa- 
tion behind  them.  "The  English,"  says  the  same  capable 
witness,  "  had  made  themselves  so  hateful,  not  only  to  liadama, 
but  to  the  people,  that  every  thing  false  and  mendacious  used 
to  be  called  'English:  "J 

In  1862,  the  society  which  employed  Mr.  Ellis,  and  profited 
by  his  eloquence,  seem  to  have  comprehended  that  future  rev- 
elations might  contrast  unpleasantly  with  their  jubilant  reports.. 
and  that  it  would  be  prudent  to  qualify  their  too-confident  pre- 
dictions. They  announce,  therefore,  for  the  first  time,  that  their 
prospects,  "  though  bright  and  cheering,  are  not  cloudless." 
And  then  they  unfold  the  nature  of  their  apprehensions, 

*  London  Missionary  Society's  Report,  p.  55. 

ruise  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  in  the  U.  8.  Frigate  Essex,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xv.,  p. 


t  Cr 


The  Last  Travels  of  Ida  Pfeiffer,  pp.  132,  230  (18G1). 


544  CHAPTER  VI. 

"  Already  both  Popery  and  infidelity  are  there  and  active ;  and 
no  opportunity  will  be  lost  of  misrepresenting  and  withstanding 
the  teachers  of  God's  pure  truth" — that  ^,  the  agents  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society.  "Let  us  then,"  they  continue, 
"  make  the  Christians  of  Madagascar  the  special  subject  of  our 
earnest  prayer,  that  He,  '  who  holdeth  the  seven  stars  in  His 
right  hand,  and  walketh  in  the  midst  of  the  seven  golden  can- 
dlesticks,' may  preserve  their  light  pure  and  glorious  amidst 
the  superstitions  of  Antichrist  and  the  darkness  of  heathenism."* 
It  is  not  impossible  that  the  writer  of  this  well-turned  phrase 
may  have  heard  that  the  most  confidential  counsellors  of  Radama 
at  this  moment  are  the  Catholic  missionaries,  that  he  is  himself 
their  most  fervent  disciple,  and  that  he  has  lately  addressed  a 
letter  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  soliciting  his  apostolic  benedic- 
tion for  himself  and  his  people. 

The  island  of  Borneo  must  not  be  altogether  omitted,  because 
it  is  represented,  apparently  with  truth,  as  an  exception  to  the 
general  success  of  Catholic  missions.  Our  only  witness  is  an 
official  writer,  Mr.  Spencer  St.  John.  "  Signor  Cuarteron,"  he 
relates,  who  supplied  and  controlled  the  mission  funds,  "  was 
totally  unfit  to  conduct  so  important  an  undertaking."  Yet 
the  missionaries  who  consented  to  labor  under  such  a  president 
were  evidently,  by  Mr.  St.  John's  own  account,  workmen  of 
the  usual  class.  The  eldest,  Father  Reyna,  he  says,  "  was  one 
of  those  remarkable  men  occasionally  found  among  the  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Romish  Church,  of  the  most  pleasing  manners, 
winning  address,  and  acute  mind,  and  yet  he  was  sent  with 
four  companions  to  New  Guinea,  where  three  of  them  were 
killed  and  eaten  by  the  inhabitants,  while  he  escaped  in  shat- 
tered health  to  die  shortly  afterwards."  Such  men  would  have 
probably  labored  with  more  success,  if  they  had  remained  in 
Borneo. 

On  the  other  hand,  here  is  Mr.  St.  John's  account  of  the 
Protestant  missionaries  in  the  same  island,  with  whom  he  was 
connected  by  the  strongest  ties  of  friendship  and  sympathy. 
Every  temporal  and  political  advantage,  he  frankly  confesses, 
was  on  their  side.  "The  missionary  is  heartily  welcomed  at 
every  station"  by  the  government  officials,  and  "  the  very  fact 
that  many  of  the  missionaries  have  accompanied  the  govern- 
ment officers  on  their  official  tours  has  not  been  lost  on  these 
tribes."  In  spite  of  these  customary  advantages,  here  is  their 
history  as  narrated  by  Mr.  St.  John. 

"Ten  missionaries  out  of  fourteen  have  abandoned  their  duties 
iu  Borneo  !"  Mr.  St.  John  cannot  explain  this  singular  exodus. 

*  Report  of  tlie  London  Missiona^  Society,  p.  46. 


MISSIONS   IN   OCEANICA.  545 

"  Of  all  the  officers  in  the  Sarawak  government  service,"  he 
observes,  "  who  have  been  employed  there  during  the  last  four- 
teen years,  I  only  know  of  one  who  has  abandoned  his  position, 
and  that  one  under  peculiar  circumstances ;  while,  as  I  have 
said,  five-sevenths  of  the  missionaries  have  left  their  posts, 
though  their  work  is  not  harder,  certainly  not  nearly  so  dan- 
gerous, as  that  of  the  officers,  and  is  as  well  paid." 

Of  one  who  remained,  and  who  seems  to  have  been  his 
personal  friend,  he  speaks  warmly,  for  the  zeal  and  judgment 
which  he  displayed  in  dealing  with  the  natives ;  but,  he  adds, 
"  that  his  teaching  has  made  any  marked  difference  in  their 
conduct  I  do  not  suppose,"  and  that  but  for  his  "little  success," 
with  all  the  government  authorities  to  back  him,  "  we  should 
have  to  pronounce  the  Borneo  mission  a  complete  failure."* 

Lastly,  even  a  secretary  of  the  London  Missionary  Society 
confesses  of  another  island,  far  distant  from  Borneo,  "  "With 
regard  to  Mauritius,  the  only  party  increasing  rapidly  is  the 
Roman  Catholic. "f  The  facts,  then,  are  everywhere  the 
same,  and  everywhere  there  is  a  Protestant  witness  to  reveal 
them. 


CONCLUSION. 

We  have  now  examined  with  sufficient,  perhaps  with  exces- 
sive minuteness,  the  history  of  missions  in  Oceanica.  Upon 
that  history  we  need  offer  no  comment.  Protestant  writers 
have  sufficiently  performed  that  task,  and  have  even  accepted, 
at  least  in  part,  some  of  the  practical  conclusions  which  it 
suggests.  It  is  from  them  we  have  learned  both  the  virtues  of 
•the  Catholic  missionaries,  and  the  vices  of  their  rivals, — the 
constancy  displayed  by  the  converts  of  the  first,  and  the  im- 
morality and  misery  of  the  nominal  disciples  of  the  last.  As 
early  as  1843,  Mr.  Jarves,  the  anti-Catholic  historian  of  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  was  already  lamenting  that  "  from  present 
appearances  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  Roman  Catholicism  will 
eventually  settle  into  a  flourishing  sect."  Mr.  Olmsted,  a  gra- 
ver but  equally  prejudiced  writer,  had  also  told  his  American 
readers,  that  the  Catholic  missionaries  had  "  gained  a  perma- 
nent tooting  upon  many  of  the  islands  of  the  Pacific ;"  and  had 
added,  with  unconcealed  regret,  his  own  opinion,  that  "  their 

*  Life  in  the  Forests  of  the  Far  East,  by  Spenser  St.  John,  F.R.G.S.,  &c.,  &c. 
vol.  i..  ch.  i.,  p.  21 ;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  pp.  8G9,  375  (1862). 
f  Tour  in  &  Africa,  by  J.  J.  Freeman,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  387. 


546  CHAPTER  VI. 

religion   is  destined  to  have  the  ascendency  in  most  of  these 
islands." 

We  have  seen  how  these  anticipations  were  gradually  accom- 
plished, throughout  all  the  islands  of  the  South  Sea,  in  spite  of 
persecutions  prolonged  through  many  years,  and  of  cruelties 
which  would  have  been  more  consistent  in  Chinese  mandarins 
than  in  Protestant  ministers.  "  It  is  not  difficult  to  see,"  ob- 
serves Mr.  Hopkins  in  1862,  "  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
with  its  open  doors,  free  sittings,  daily  mass  and  vespers,  its 
corps  of  teaching  and  visiting  nuns,  its  sacramental  system, 
its  worship  addressed  to  the  mind  and  heart  through  the  eye 
and  ear,  as  well  as  by  the  word  to  the  understanding,  .  .  has 
strongly  enlisted  the  almost  vacant  native  faculties."* 

The  whole  narrative  is  now  before  us, — from  that  great 
"manifestation  of  pious  zeal"  which  was  displayed  in  the 
voyage  of  the  ship  Duff,  whose  passengers,  wre  have  been  told, 
exhibited  religion  "  in  her  native  purity,"  to  the  death  of  the 
Abbe  Bachelot,  and  the  final  humiliation  of  his  assassins. 
"  From  exclusive  missionary  influence,"  says  Mr.  Hopkins, 
under  which  they  so  long  groaned,  "  the  Hawaiian  nation  has 
escaped."  The  inhabitants  of  other  groups,  we  have  seen, 
have  finally  cast  off  the  same  control.  The  reign  of  missionary 
dictators,  who  could  only  make  Christianity  hateful,  is  over, 
and  the  earthly  weapons  which  they  wielded  have  broken  to 
pieces  in  their  hands. 

With  the  past,  then,  thanks  to  the  candid  histories  of  Prot- 
estant travellers,  we  are  sufficiently  acquainted ;  and  if  we  de- 
sire to  look  into  the  future,  the  actors  in  these  varied  scenes 
are  themselves  willing  to  assist  us  in  the  attempt.  It  is  a 
Protestant  missionary  who  assures  us,  in  language  worthy  of 
himself  and  his  cause,  that  "  the  natives  of  the  South  Sea 
Islands  appear  to  be  a  people  upon  whom  the  Mother  of  Har- 
lots"— that  is,  the  Catholic  Church — "  shall  operate  for  the' 
purposes  of  superstition  and  error.rf  It  is  thus  that  he  con- 
fesses the  unwelcome  fact,  which  even  he  can  no  longer  deny, 
that  the  battle  is  over  and  the  victory  won.  And  then  this 
Protestant  witness  adds,  in  words  with  which  we  may  more  fitly 
close  this  instructive  history  than  by  any  observation  of  our 
own,  that  as  he  and  his  companions  failed  to  convert  the  natives 
while  they  were  heathen,  their  only  remaining  hope  is  to  corrupt 
them  now  that  they  are  Christians.  He  admits  indeed  that  this 
will  be  considerably  more  difficult,  and  does  not  affect  to  be 
sanguine  of  success ;  but  he  is  willing  at  least  to  reveal  the 

*  Hawaii,  &c.,  ch.  xxiv.,  p.  387. 

f  Friendly  and  Feejee  Islands,  p.  133. 


MISSIONS  IN  OCKANICA.  547 

final  issue  of  Protestant  missions  in  Oceanica,  and  the  real 
character  of  those  who  took  part  in  them,  in  these  notable 
terms  :  "  Unless  we  bestir  ourselves,  the  probability  is,  that  we 
shall  have  to  convert  many  of  the  South  Sea  Islanders  from 
Popery,  instead  of  from  Heathenism,  which  is  much  more  dif- 
ficult and  dangerous." 


CHAPTEK  VII. 


MISSIONS    IN    AFRICA. 


MORE  than  a  thousand  years  after  the  Roman  Empire  had 
passed  away,  the  land  of  Africa — a  name  which  once  included 
only  the  provinces  of  Tunis  and  Tripoli — was  still  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Europe  only  the  narrow  but  fertile  region  which 
stretched  from  Egypt  to  Morocco.  Of  the  vast  continent  which 
extended  in  an  unbroken  line  nearly  five  thousand  miles  towards 
the  south,  far  away  beyond  the  Atlas  mountains,  beyond  the 
Great  Desert,  beyond  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  the  Niger,  and  the 
Senegal,  Europe  had  no  knowledge.  And  when,  at  length,  in 
the  fifteenth  century  of  our  era,  the  mariners  of  Portugal 
weathered  with  slow  and  hesitating  course  the  capes  which  had 
barred  the  way  to  all  former  navigators ;  planted  colonies  on 
the  banks  of  the  Eio  Grande  and  the  Gambia ;  won  for  their 
king  the  new  title  of  "Lord  of  Guinea;"  established  their 
apostolic  missionaries  in  the  heart  of  Congo  ;  and  finally,  under 
the  guidance  of  Bartholomew  Diaz,  gazed  with  wonder  and  awe 
on  the  u  Stormy  Cape,"  which  from  that  moment  became  to  all 
Europe  the  "  Cape  of  Good  Hope ;"  even  the  boldest  would 
hardly  have  ventured  to  predict  that  the  flag  of  Portugal  would 
soon  be  carried  past  it  in  triumph  by  Yasco  de  Gama,  on  his 
return  from  the  Indies,  in  the  last  year  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
It  is  of  this  land,  of  which  every  bay,  and  gulf,  and  promontory 
have  since  become  familiar  to  us,  that  we  are  now  to  speak. 

In  attempting,  however,  to  trace  the  outline  of  the  history  of 
missions  in  this  vast  continent,  we  encounter  for  the  first  time 
a  difficulty  from  which  there  is  no  escape.  In  the  narrative 
which  we  have  now  to  present,  there  can  be  neither  unity  nor 
connection,  because  there  is  none  in  the  regions  to  which  it 
refers.  The  four  extremities  of  Africa,  corresponding  with  the 
cardinal  points,  have  been  hitherto  as  completely  isolated  from 
one  another,  as  though  the  united  waters  of  the  Atlantic  and 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  549 

Pacific  were  spread  between  them.  Egypt  is  almost  as  effec- 
tually separated  from  Guinea,  Morocco  from  Abyssinia,  Tunis 
from  Kaffraria,  Angola  from  Natal,  as  though  the  Andes  had 
been  piled  on  the  Himalayas  to  part  them  asunder.  It  is  not 
one  nation  or  people  of  which  we  have  now  to  speak,  but  many ; 
distinct  in  their  origin,  their  history,  and  their  customs.  In 
one  respect  only  they  seem  to  have  a  common  destiny.  When 
the  prophet  of  old  proclaimed  the  curse  of  the  Avenger  upon 
Egypt  and  Ethiopia ;  when  he  said  to  the  first,  "  I  will  deliver 
Egypt  into  the  hand  of  cruel  masters,"*  and  to  the  second, 
"•  Woe  to  the  land  which  is  beyond  the  rivers  of  Ethiopia  ;"f 
the  malediction  was  not  for  a  time,  but  for  ages  and  genera- 
tions, mighty  enough  to  overleap  the  frontiers  of  many  lands, 
and  to  run  like  a  consuming  fire  through  all  the  wide  plains  of 
Africa,  from  the  Red  Sea  to  the  Atlantic,  and  from  the  mouths 
of  the  Nile  to  the  Indian  Ocean.  And  so  enduring,  as  it  seems, 
has  been  this  ancient  curse — thougji  we  are  sure  it  has  changed 
its  character  since  the  coming  of  the  Redeemer — that  even  at 
the  present  hour  it  appears  a  kind  of  paradox  to  speak  of  re- 
ligion in  connection  with  Africa,  as  palpable  as  if  we  were  to 
search  for  the  snows  of  the  Caucasus,  or  the  cool  streams  which 
they  discharge,  in  the  burning  sands  of  the  Sahara ;  so  that  we 
are  almost  tempted  to  turn  away  with  doubt  and  fear  from  any 
inquiry  into  the  religious  annals  of  a  land  whose  history  seems 
to  be  summed  up  in  this  one  fact — that  it  is  still,  after  a  thou- 
sand years,  the  home  of  the  Moor,  the  Negro,  and  the  Kaffir. 

Yet  even  here  we  shall  trace  once  more  the  contrast  which 
it  is  our  purpose  to  illustrate  in  all  lands ;  even  here  we  shall 
see,  as  we  have  seen  elsewhere,  the  unchanging  beauty  and 
power  of  the  Church,  the  feebleness  and  confusion  of  the  Sects ; 
even  here  we  shall  learn  what  mariner  of  men  they  are,  and 
what  they  can  accomplish,  who  bear  a  Divine  commission  ;  and, 
also,  what  comes  of  pretending  to  do  an  apostle's  work  without 
an  apostle's  vocation. 


MOROCCO. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  northern  provinces — Algiers  and 
Morocco,  the  Numidia  and  Mauritania  of  the  Romans;  Tunis 
and  Tripoli,  the  Africa  Propria,  whence  Carthage  sent  forth 
her  fleets  against  the  mistress  of  the  world  ;  and  Egypt,  where 
even  now  the  promise  begins  to  be  fulfilled  which  said  of  old, 
"  In  that  day  there  shall  be  an  altar  of  the  Lord  in  the  land  of 

*  Isaias  xix.  4.  f  xviii.  1. 


650  CHAPTER   VII. 

Egypt."  A  few  words,  however,  must  suffice,  for  we  have 
hereafter  to  pursue  our  way  round  all  the  long  coasts  of  Afri- 
ca ;  and  it  is  not  here  that  the  Cross  has  won  its  accustomed 
triumphs,  nor  the  Church  her  wonted  victories,  though  here 
St.  Augustine  preached,  and  St.  Louis  died.  "  With  St.  Aus- 
tin," says  a  modern  writer,  "the  Church  of  Africa  expired."* 
Already,  in  the  third  century,  schism  and  heresy,  sure  precur- 
sors of  final  apostasy,  had  spread  like  a  plague  along  the 
southern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean ;  till  in  the  sixth,  the 
avenging  hordes  came  out  of  Arabia  which  in  the  fifteenth 
were  to  vanquish  the  last  Constantine  in  the  capital  of  the 
Western  Empire,  and  barbarism  swept  away  in  a  common  de- 
struction both  religion  and  civilization. 

It  would  be  beside  our  purpose  to  offer  even  a  sketch  of  the 
earlier  history  of  these  ill-fated  provinces.  Corrupted  almost 
from  the  beginning  by  heresiarchs  of  every  school, — at  one  time 
overrun  by  Donatists ;  at  another  convulsed  by  the  Arian  ex- 
cesses ;  or  cruelly  scourged  by  the  Vandal  kings,  with  whom 
the  Donatists  leagued  themselves  out  of  hatred  to  the  Church  ;f 
or  yet  more  grievously  chastised  by  the  Arab  inundation  under 
the  Caliph  Omar  in  547,  till  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  later 
the  Roman  name  was  finally  effaced  from  Africa,  and  the  Moors 
embraced  the  religion  of  their  Arab  conquerors, — these  unhap- 
py lands  are  still  paying  the  penalty  of  guilt  not  yet  absolved ; 
and,  even  at  the  present  hour,  with  the  exception  of  a  single 
region,  are  the  special  field  of  that  "great  and  momentous 
struggle  between  Islamism  and  Paganism":):  of  which  Africa 
has  been  the  most  remarkable  theatre  during  nearly  a  thousand 
years. 

If,  however,  the  provinces  of  North  Africa  have  not  yet  been 
reconverted  from  the  Mahometan  apostasy,  it  has  not  been  for 
want  either  of  apostles  or  martyrs.  Thirty-nine  houses  of 
Trinitarians  were  founded  in  England  in  the  twelfth  century, 
whose  members  were  bound  by  vow  uto  gather  and  carry  alms 
into  Barbary  for  the  redemption  of  slaves."§  In  the  single  year 
1261,  more  than  two  hundred  Franciscans  were  martyred  by  the 
Mussulmans ;  and  not  long  after,  as  if  this  were  an  incomplete 
sacrifice,  one  hundred  and  ninety  Dominicans  received  from  the 
same  hands  the  baptism  of  blood. ||  We. may  not  stay  to  relate 
their  history.  They  knew  what  destiny  awaited  them;  yet 
from  Lyons  and  Genoa,  from  Rome  and  Naples,  they  hurried  to 

*  L'Afrique  Chretienne,  par.  M.  Jean  Yanoski,  p.  45. 

f  JEKstoire  de  la  Domination  des  Vandales  en  Afrique,  par  Yanoski,  p.  85 

Earth,  Travels  in  Africa,  preface,  p.  22. 

The  Pillars  of  Hercules,  by  David  Urqukart,  Esq.,  M.P.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  286. 

Henrion,  tome  i,  en.  vi.,  p.  81. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  551 

the  battle-field,  content  to  shed  their  blood  that  others  might 
one  day  gain  the  victory,  of  which  that  blood  was  to  be  the 
price.  Forty  years  earlier,  in  1219,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  left 
Ancona  on  the  same  errand  ;  but  though  even  the  ferocious 
Moslem  bowed  in  reverence  before  him,  and  declared  that  "God 
alone  could  have  formed  such  a  man"  he  gained  admirers  only 
and  not  disciples  ;  and  at  length  was  forced  to  admit,  in  spite 
of  the  charity  which  filled  tyis  soul,  that  their  hour  was  not  yet 
come,  and  to  speak  to  his  fellow-laborers  those  memorable 
words,  "  Away  from  this  place ;  let  us  fly  ;  let  us  fly  far  from 
these  too  humane  barbarians,  whom  we  can  neither  compel  to 
adore  our  Master,  nor  to  persecute  us  who  are  His  servants."* 
Yet  Africa  was  not  abandoned  by  Christian  charity,  ever  as 
ingenious  in  repairing  defeats  as  patient  in  enduring  them.  In 
1630,  the  Franciscan  John  de  Prado,  still  honored  as  the 

Eatron  of  Tangier,  sealed  with  his  blood  the  new  mission  which 
e  had  founded,  and  of  which  a  living  writer  observes,  "  There 
is  nothing  more  sorrowful,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  than 
the  history  of  this  mission,  perpetually  destroyed,  yet  perpetu- 
ally springing  up  again  from  the  ashes  of  the  martyrs."f  In 
1646,  the  institute  of  the  Lazarist  Fathers,  who  are  now  scat- 
tered through  the  whole  East,  from  the  banks  of  the  Nile  to 
those  of  the  Yellow  Sea,  was  founded  by  St.  Vincent  of  Paul. 
Other  religious  societies  had  preceded  it,  and  it  was  to  the 
Fathers  of  the  Order  of  Mercy  that  the  captive  Cervantes,  while 
planning  in  his  dungeon  the  liberation  of  twenty -five  thousand 
Christian  prisoners,  owed  his  own  redemption  from  the  Moors. if 
But  of  all  the  missionary  communities  which  have  chosen 
Africa  for  the  field  of  their  labors,  none  have  surpassed  the 
children  of  St.  Vincent ;  who,  as  Count  St.  Marie  relates  in  1845, 
not  only  "  rendered  important  services  to  commerce,  but  many 
of  them  acquired  great  influence  with  the  Deys,  who  often  ap- 
pealed to  them  for  counsel  in  questions  of  difficulty.  Their 
influence  has  protected  the  Christians  from  much  misery."§ 
And  another  Algerian  authority  notices  the  still  more  striking 
fact,  that  when  France,  in  a  moment  of  delirium,  cast  out  the 
family  of  one  of  her  noblest  sons,  Tunis  afforded  them  protec- 
tion and  succor.  "  The  venerable  establishment  founded  by 
St.  Vincent  of  Paul,"  says  Baron  Baude,  "  received  protection 
from  the  Divan  when,  in  an  access  of  stupid  impiety,  the  Con- 
vention destroyed  it.  A  Catholic  church  was  consecrated  at 

*  "  Les  Maures  sont  les  homines  les  plus  doux  de  la  Barbaric."    Alger,  par 
M.  P.  Rozet,  p.  9. 
f  Le  Maroc,  par  M.  Godard,  p.  16. 

%  Algeria,  Past  and  Present,  by  J.  H.  Blofeld,  Esq.,  p.  297. 
§  Algeria  in  1845,  by  Count  St.  Marie,  ch.  v.,  p.  185  ;  English  edition. 


552  CHAPTER   VII. 

Tunis,  and  the  ministers  of  the  Dey  contributed  sixteen  thou- 
sand piastres  towards  its  construction."* 

Even  in  Morocco,  it  was  not  till  the  year  1822  that  the 
Franciscans  were  finally  restricted  by  the  Sultan  to  Tangier, 
and  that  the  Catholic  Church  ceased  to  be  represented  through- 
out the  empire,  except  by  a  single  religious  of  the  province  of 
San  Diego  in  Andalusia.  "The  revolutionary  follies  from 
which  Spain  has  failed  to  preserve  herself  have  caused  this  re- 
sult," says  a  French  missionary,  filled  with  the  generous  ardor 
of  his  order  and  nation :  "  and  if  the  province  of  San  Diego 
has  no  longer  strength  to  cultivate  the  heritage  of  its  fathers, 
more  energetic  workmen  will  receive  from  tlie  Holy  See  its 
abandoned  patrimony. "f  But  we  must  revert  for  a  moment, 
before  we  consider  the  actual  state  of  religion  in  North  Africa, 
to  an  earlier  epoch. 

The  story  of  the  combats  of  the  children  of  St.  Dominic  and 
St.  Francis,  by  whose  blood  the  sterile  soil  of  Africa  was  so 
often  moistened,  and  to  whom  its  future  conversion  will  be 
mainly  due,  need  not  be  recounted  here.  Whatever  divine  char- 
ity could  inspire,  or  superhuman  valor  attempt,  was  dared  by 
men  who  were  so  little  discouraged  by  what  seemed  perpetual 
failure,  that  it  was  the  sure  promise  of  tribulation  which  most 
powerfully  attracted  them  to  this  thankless  land.  Some  were 
captured  even  before  they  could  touch  its  shores ;  others  fell 
almost  within  sight  of  the  vessel  which  they  had  scarcely 
quitted  ;  while  the  rest  carried  hope  and  consolation  to  many  a 
captive  whose  bonds  they  lightened  by  sharing  them,  or  wasted 
away  in  dungeons  which  their  presence  converted  into  sanc- 
tuaries. 

And  the  toils  of  these  victims  were  not  in  vain,  though  the 
Moslem  thought  their  defeat  final,  and  the  world  deemed  their 
work  madness.  The  Church  will  yet  reap  the  harvest  of  which 
they  planted  the  seed.  It  is  to  what  they  did  while  on  earth, 
and  perhaps  still  more  to  what  they  have  done  since  they  quitted 
it,  that  we  may  attribute  the  blight  which  has  now  fallen  upon 
Islamism,  once  so  arrogant  and  mighty,  and  the  ignominy  and 
decrepitude  in  which  the  mortal  enemy  of  the  Cross  is  pining 
away  before  the  eyes  of  Christendom,  no  longer  united,  in  arms 
or  in  faith,  against  the  common  foe.  The  dead  have  won  the 
victory  of  which  the  living  are  to  gather  the  spoils. 

And  already,  as  we  shall  see  more  fully  when  we  enter  the 
lands  which  lie  to  the  east  of  the  Nile,  the  blood  of  the  martyrs 
is  yielding  its  accustomed  fruit.  If  St.  Francis  fled  away  from 

*  L'Algerie,  par  le  Baron  Baude,  ex-Commissaire  du  Roi  en  Afrique,  tome 
ii.,  p.  363. 
f  Le  Maroc,  p.  18. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  553 

a  people  who  offered  to  himself  the  homage  which  they  re- 
fused to  his  Master,  the  children  of  St.  Francis  have  at  this 
clay  altars  at  Jerusalem,  at  Bethlehem,  at  Nazareth,  "  wherever 
the  history  of  the  redemption  has  left  a  memorial."  This  has 
been  their  reward.  And  {he  same  recompense  another  saint 
seems  to  have  won  for  North  Africa.  When  St.  Louis  lay  on 
his  bed  of  ashes,  assisted  in  his  last  moments  by  the  Bishop  of 
Tunis,  and  exclaiming  with  his  latest  breath,  "For  the  love  of 
God  let  ns  obtain  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  in  Tunis ;"  in 
that  hour,  as  a  Christian  writer  of  our  own  age  observes,  "  he 
obtained  for  France  the  privilege  of  one  day  regenerating 
Africa."*  Let  us  see  how  far  France  has  fulfilled  her  mission, 
*and  with  what  prospects  of  future  success. 


ALGERIA    AND   TUNIS. 

Once  more  we  shall  be  able  to  refer,  as  in  former  chapters, 
to  Protestant  writers,  whom  Providence  seems  everywhere  to 
employ  to  this  end  ;  and  our  first  witness  is  an  eminent  clergy- 
man of  the  Established  Church,  widely  known  amongst  his 
countrymen  as  an  able  and  learned  writer.  This  gentleman 
will  inform  us,  with  the  candor  which  might  be  expected  in  so 
distinguished  a  person,  that  the  Church  still  produces  in  the 
nineteenth  century  exactly  the  same  class  of  evangelists  whom 
St.  Augustine  led  in  the  fifth  and  St.  Francis  in  the  thirteenth. 

Of  the  See  of  Algiers,  and  its  two  first  occupants,  Mr. 
Blakesley  speaks  in  the  following  terms:  "The  See  has  since 
its  constitution  been  filled  by  prelates  of  great  zeal  and  intel- 
ligence, and  the  influence  of  the  clergy  has  done  much  towards 
improving  the  character  of  the  European  part  of  the  popula- 
tion." Their  first  efforts  were  directed,  as  charity  required,  to 
the  amelioration  of  that  vagabond  class  of  soldiers  and  adven- 
turers who  swarmed  in  Algeria  from  the  earliest  period  of  the 
invasion,  and  whose  coarse  immoralities  were  a  scandal  even 
to  the  natives ;  so  that  the  Kabyles,  as  Colonel  Walmsley 
notices,  were  accustomed  to  say  of  the  French,  "  they  do  not 
follow  the  doctrines  which  they  profess. "f 

They  might  well  say  it,  considering  the  character  which 
even  French  writers  have  given  both  of  the  military  and  civil 
colonists  of  Algeria.  Not  only  the  common  soldiers,  by  their 
boastful  impiety,  have  too  often  shocked  both  the  Moor  and 
the  Arab;  but  even  amongst  the  officers,  as  Count  St.  Marie 

*  Baron  Henri  on. 

f  Sketctie*  of  Algeria,  by  H.  M.  Walmsley,  p.  138  (1858). 


554  CHAPTER  VII. 

relates,  "there  are  few  examples  of  honorable  conduct"  If 
France  has  done  more  than  any  modern  nation  to  promote  the 
glory  of  God,  she  has  also  done  more  to  outrage  it.  "  Since 
your  religion  is  so  noble  and  beneficent,"  said  Abd-el-Kader  to 
the  Vicar-general  of  Algiers,  uwhy  do  not  the  French  observe 
it?"*  And  the  answer  which  some  of  them  have  made  to  this 
reproach  is  a  cynical  jest,  such  as  the  following:  "Depuis 
Teveque  et  le  procureur-general,"  says  M.  Pellissier,  "jusqu'au 
sacristain  et  an  garde  champetre,  on  pourrait  a  la  rigueur  se 
passer  de  tout  en  Algerie,  mais  on  ne  saurait  se  passer  de 
l>armee."t  , 

It  was  with  the  embarrassments  resulting  from  the  profane- 
ness  of  his  own  countrymen  that  the  first  bishop  of  Algiers  had 
to  contend,  and  amongst  his  greatest  difficulties  his  successor 
still  reckons  udes  discours  d'une  infernale  perversite  tenus  aux 
indigenes.";):  So  notorious  was  the  misconduct  of  the  French 
soldiery,  and  especially  of  their  officers,  that  the  Shereef  Kebir, 
who  had  fought  them,  said  to  Mr.  Richardson,  "The  French 
are  a  people  without  religion,  or  faith  in  their  words  and  prom- 
ises,'^ so  easy  is  it  for  one  immoral  and  unbelieving  class  to 
compromise  a  whole  nation,  and  to  neutralize  the  labors  of 
apostolic  men,  whose  teaching  is  frustrated  by  their  impiety, 
and  whose  example  is  nullified  by  their  vices.  It  was  in  the 
hope  of  applying  some  remedy  to  these  evils,  that  Marshal 
Bugeaud  commanded  the  attendance  of  the  troops  at  public 
worship,  "to  secure  the  respect  of  the  Arabs;"]  but  the  influ- 
ence of  this  eminent  person  seems  to  have  been  exerted  in  vain, 
since  an  English  traveller  informs  us,  in  1860,  that  he  actually 
heard  General  Desvaux  deliver  an  address  at  Tuggurt,  from  the 
pulpit  of  a  mosque,  in  which  he  exhorted  his  hearers  to  "  re- 
turn thanks  to  God  and  the  Prophet  for  the  blessings  which 
France  has  brought  you."T  It  is  fair  to  add,  that  French  sol- 
diers do  not  always  perform  so  scandalous  a  mission.- 

Even  the  civil  administration,  infected  by  the  spurious  lib- 
eralism of  the  age,  and  adopting  the  maxims  of  government 
which  modern  statesmen  have  consented  to  borro\v  from  Prot- 
estant sources,  has  often  been  openly  hostile  to  the  progress  of 
religion.  The  Sisters  of  Charity  were  ordered  to  remove  the 
crucifix  from  their  hospitals, — a  command  which  they  refused 
to  obey, — lest  the  sensitive  conscience  of  the  Arab  should  be 

*  Annals. 

\  La  Colonisation  Militaire  en  Algerie,  par  E.  Pellissier,  p.  18. 
J  Lettre  Pastorale  de  Monseigneur  Pavy ;  Orateurs  Sacres,  tome  Ixxxiv., 
p.  1082  ;  Ed.  Migne. 

§  Narrative  of  a  Mission  to  Central  Africa,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  229  (1853). 
}  Urquhart,  Pillars  of  Hercules,  ch.  vi.,  p.  98. 
TT  TJie  Great  SaJiara,  by  H.  B.  Tristram,  M.A.,  &c.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  326. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  555 

wounded !  and  a  formal  censure  was  addressed  by  the  Minister 
of  War  to  the  Bishop  of  Algiers,  in  1846,  for  not  repressing 
efficaciously  the  "  proselytizing  schemes"  of  the  Sisters,* — 
which  consisted  in  recommending  their  dying  patients  to  have 
a  care  for  their  souls.  As  late  as  1850,  the  celebrated  Pere  de 
Ravignan  presented  a  memorial  to  the  minister,  in  which  he 
solicited  liberty  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Arabs,  and  the 
petition  appears  to  have  received  no  reply,  f 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  such  discouragements  that  the  first 
Algerian  prelate  commenced  his  formidable  mission  ;  while  two 
priests  in  Algiers,  one  at  Oran,  and  another  at  Bone,  comprised 
in  1839,  as  Mr.  Blakesley  remarks,  "  the  whole  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical establishment  in  the  French  possessions  of  North 
Africa."  Within  seven  years,  however,  the  bishop,  Mgr. 
Dupuch,  "  had  established,  almost  entirely  at  his  own  cost 
and  that  of  his  friends,  forty-seven  churches  and  chapels,  and 
forty  almonries,  hospitals,  prisons,  penitentiaries,  and  other  in- 
stitutions, which  employed  thirty-nine  regular  and  three  super- 
numerary priests,  besides  a  large  number  of  Sisters  of  Charity." 

A  French  authority  observes  that,  by  the  year  1846,  he  had 
ninety-one  priests,  sixty  churches,  and  one  hundred  and  forty 
Sisters  of  various  orders.^  Such  were  the  works  of  the  first 
Bishop  of  Algiers,  of  whom  the  great  leader  of  the  Arabs,  even 
when  flying  from  the  French  arms,  said  to  the  Abbe  Suchet, 
"  I  know  all  that  he  has  done  for  Algeria,  and  have  a  great 
veneration  for  his  person. "§  So  universal  is  the  admission 
both  of  his  private  virtues  and  of  the  success  of  his  labors,  that 
M.  St.  Marc  Girardin  could  say,  with  general  approval,  "  Of  all 
our  establishments  in  Algiers,  the  strongest  and  most  efficacious 
is  the  bishopric."! 

"  M.  Pavy,  the  successor  of  M.  Dupuch,  carried  on  the  work 
which  the  other  had  begun  with  no  less  tact  than  vigor,  and 
so  far  as  French  power -is  consolidated  in  Northern  Africa,  it  is 
mainly  due  to  the  moral  influence  of  the  clergy."  And  then 
Mr.  Blakesley,  a  witness  as  capable  as  he  is  truthful,  describes, 
as  far  as  a  stranger  could,  by  what  process  that  influence  was 
acquired.  "  They  operate  upon  the  natives,  not  by  formal 
attacks  upon  their  creed,  but  by  those  works  of  charity  which 

*  La  Colonisation  de  I'Algerie,  par  Louis  de  Baudicour,  ch.  vii.,  p.  265  (1856). 

f  Vie  du  R.  P.  Xamer  de  Ravignan,  par  le  P.  A.  Ponlevoy,  tome  ii.,  p.  160. 
"  J'ai  tenu  en  mes  mains,  j'ai  copie,  et  je  pourrais  produire  un  rapport  oft  Ton 
demande  enfin  au  gouvernernent  de  proteger  les  malades  centre  le  zele  fana- 
tique  du  pr6tre  qui  les  tue."  Les  Fran$ais  en  Algerie,  par  Louis  Veuillot ; 
ch.  xix.,  p.  267  (1845). 

\  Nistoire  de  la  Conquete  d'Alger,  par  M.  Alfred  Nettement,  p.  624. 

|  Annals. 

\  Quoted  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Debary,  The  Canary  Isles,  &c.,  ch  xxiv.,  p.  301. 


556  CHAPTER  VII. 

are  common  to  Christianity  and  Islam,  and  which  more  than 
any  other  religious  act  are  appreciated  by  the  votaries  of  the 
latter.  The  hospitals  especially,  into  which  the  Moslem  popu- 
lation is  freely  admitted,  and  the  service  of  which  is,  in  many 
cases,  performed  by  females  of  one  or  other  of  the  religious 
orders,  exercise  a  powerful  influence,  and  most  deservedly  so, 
over  the  conquered  race.  I  visited  one  of  these — the  civil 
hospital  at  Oran — and  was  exceedingly  struck  with  the  appear- 
ance of  cleanliness,  order,  comfort,  and  even  cheerfulness,  which 
reigned  throughout.  The  calm  demeanor  of  the  Sisters  seemed 
to  be  felt  like  a  sunbeam  in  the  chamber  of  death.  There  was 
no  sourness  of  look,  no  parade  of  self-devotion,  no  expression  of 
the  least  wish  for  any  thing  but  more  ample  space  to  enable 
them  to  receive  all  the  patients  that  offered.  I  talked  of  the 
unhealthiness  of  the  summer  season,  when  the  wards  would  be 
full  of  fever  patients ;  but  I  could  not  elicit  a  word  implying 
that  they  themselves  would  then  be  exposed  to  greater  risk,  or 
compelled  to  greater  labor.  The  Apostle's  exhortation  to  let 
works  of  mercy  be  done  with  cheerfulness  came  forcibly  into 
my  mind,  when  I  thought  of  the  conventional  unction  in  which 
the  philanthropists  of  London  platforms  are  wont  to  indulge."* 

Other  Catholic  institutions  receive  from  Mr.  Blakesley  equal- 
ly generous  notice,  and  especially  the  orphan  asylums  origin- 
ated by  Pere  Brumault,  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  conducted 
with  the  most  auspicious  results,  in  spite  of  the  vexatious 
meddling  of  the  administration,  which  tried  to  extort  from  him 
a  pledge  that  he  would  not  convert  the  orphans  to  Christianity! 
The  Marechal  Bugeaud,  to  whom  he  appealed,  decided  that  as 
he  was  the  real  father  of  the  poor  outcasts,  he  had  a  right  to  do 
as  he  pleased  "  with  his  own  children ."f  In  1850,  he  had  two 
hundred  and  seventy  orphans  under  his  charge ;  in  1855,  they 
had  increased  to  four  hundred  and  ninety. 

Finally,  Mr.  Blakesley  observes  that  in  the  first  fifteen  years 
of  the  French  occupation,  in  spite  of  the  decay  of  noble  tradi- 
tions once  dear  to  the  heart  of  France,  the  civil  administration, 
learning  wisdom  from  experience,  had  provided  thirty-seven 
new  churches,  "  independently  of  others  due  to  private  efforts," 
and  that  within  the  same  brief  period  the  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment had  increased  to  four  vicars-general  and  about  one 
hundred  priests,  a  number  since  largely  increased. 

Thus  far  France  has  proved  that  she  is  not  unequal  to  the 
mission  which  Providence  has  imposed  upon  her.  A  century 
of  revolutions  may  have  changed  her  who  once  rejoiced  to  be 
"  the  most  Christian"  nation, — too  many  of  her  sons  may  have 

*  Four  Months  in  Algeria,  pp.  43-48. 
f  De  Baudicour,  ch.  vii.,  p.  292. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  557 

embraced  the  impious  maxims  of  a  shallow  and  inept  philosophy 
— even  her  soldiers,  throwing  away  the  banner  of  the  Cross  under 
which  their  fathers  fought,  may  have  proved  that  the  same  men 
can  be  physically  brave  and  morally  cowards,  can  face  with  a 
smile  the  assault  of  an  enemy  while  they  meanly  cringe  before 
the  sarcasm  of  a  comrade ;  but  France  is  still  mighty  to  atone 
for  the  crimes  of  her  apostate  children,  still  rich  enough  in  the 
treasures  of  grace  and  wisdom  to  supply  the  demand  which 
daily  reaches  her  from  every  land  for  evangelical  laborers  ;  and 
here  is  one  more  proof  of  her  inexhaustible  strength,  one  more 
company  of  that  incomparable  phalanx  which  she  offers,  even 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  for  the  service  of  the  Church. 

"  On  the  spot  where  the  battle  of  Staoueli  was  fought  and 
won  by  the  French,"  says  a  recent  English  writer,  "  a  large 
convent  now  stands," — fit  memorial  of  a  victory  which  gave 
to  North  Africa  the  first  promise  of  Christianity  and  civiliza- 
tion. That  convent  and  its  inmates  are  thus  described  in  1857 
by  another  witness,  an  Anglican  clergyman,  candid  enough  to 
avow  the  impressions  which  they  produced  on  a  heart  suffi- 
ciently delicate  and  refined  to  appreciate  them.  "The  establish- 
ment at  Staoueli,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Davies,  "  is  remarkable 
enough  in  its  features  to  require  no  surreptitious  aid  to  render 
it  an  object  of  the  deepest  interest  to  every  thinking  mind,  and 
it  is  impossible  for  any  one  to  visit  it  without  pleasure  and  ad- 
vantage to  himself."  Mr.  Davies  was  admitted  into  the  chapel 
of  the  convent,  and  thus  describes  what  he  saw  :  "  Never  was 
devotion  more  fervid  and  fixed  than  theirs  appeared  to  be  ;  not 
an  eye  was  lifted  nor  a  muscle  moved  to  indicate  that  our 
presence  distracted  their  thoughts;  body  and  soul  were  en- 
gaged together  profoundly  in  the  great  work  of  adoration. 
The  contemplation  of  this  solemn  scene  has  left  its  impression 
on  our  memories,  and  we  pray  for  abstraction  in  prayer  like 
that  of  the  monks  of  Staoueli."  And  these  monks,  whose  "  in- 
dolent" and  "useless"  lives  have  long  formed  one  of  the  world's 
most  popular  jests,  "  have  established,"  as  Colonel  Walmsley 
tells  us,  "  one  of  the  finest  model  farms  in  Algeria  ;"  and  have 
even  completed,  as  Mr.  EUakesley  adds,  "  the  collection  of  a 
series  of  important  meteorological  observations."  Devotion, 
agriculture,  and  science  are  the  occupations  of  the  community 
at  Staoueli ;  and  Mr.  Davies  was  probably  not  mistaken  when 
he  inferred  from  "  their  mild  and  smiling  countenances,  which 
indicated  nothing  but  rest  and  sweet  contentment,"  that  "  it 
was  that  l  peace  which  passeth  all  understanding'  which  these 
men  so  unmistakably  enjoyed."* 

*  Algiers  in  1857,  by  the  Rev.  E.  W.  L.  Davies,  M.A.,  Vicar  of  Ardlingfleet* 
p.  63. 


558  CHAPTER   VII. 

Such  are  the  men  whom  France  sends  to  do  the  work  of  God 
in  Algeria.  That  they  will  ultimately  succeed  in  their  holy 
mission  we  may  reasonably  believe :  and  already  the  tokens  of 
success  are  becoming  manifest  both  to  Christian  and  Mussul- 
man. The  very  legends  of  the  Arabs,  and  those  mysterious 
predictions  which  in  all  ages  have  issued  even  from  pagan  lips, 
announce  the  future  triumph  of  the  Christian  law.  Not  only 
in  Algeria,  but  even  throughout  the  Sahara,  such  ominous 
voices  are  heard,  declaring  the  coming  fall  of  Islam.  "  This 
is  so  general  an  idea,"  says  a  recent  African  traveller,  "  that 
even  the  ignorant  Mahomedans  of  the  East  firmly  believe  that 
the  Amhara,  or  Christian  population  of  Abyssinia,  will  at  a  fu- 
ture time  seize  Mecca,  and  destroy  the  temple."*  One  hundred 
and  thirty  years  ago,  as  General  Marey  notices,  the  French  in- 
vasion was  prophesied  by  the  Hadji  A'issa,  a  marabout  of  La- 
fhouat ;  and  the  prophecy,  which  was  repeated  to  the  general 
y  a  lineal  descendant  of  Aissa,  contains,  amongst  others,  the 
following  verses : 

"  A  Christian  army,  protected  by  God,  advances  towards  us." 

"  The  power  of  the  Christians  will  have  no  limits." 

"  The  Mosques  will  be  abandoned." 

"  The  religion  of  the  faithful  is  dead  at  Algiers."! 

A  succession  of  remarkable  events  has  conspired  to  confirm 
these  anticipations.  One  of  the  earliest  converts  was  the  wife 
of  the  Bey  of  Constantina,  as  one  of  the  latest  has  been  a 
daughter  of  Abd-el-Kader,  now  a  Sister  of  Charity ;  and  though 
hitherto  insignificant  in  number,  almost  every  class — Arabs, 
Moors,  and  Jews — has  proved  itself  open  to  Christian  influence. 
But  it  is  the  gradual  and  almost  universal  destruction  of  ancient 
prejudices,  and  the  tardy  recognition  of  the  immense  superi- 
ority of  the  Christian  race,  which  more  especially  claims  at- 
tention. By  the  year  1843,  three  mosques  in  the  capital  had 
already  become  Catholic  churches  ;J  and  when  the  central 
mosque  of  Algiers  was  solemnly  blessed  for  Christian  worship, 
it  was  the  Mufti  Ben  Ekbati  who  said  to  General  Count 
D'Erlon,  in  words  of  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel  the  sig- 
nificance :  "  Our  mosque  will  change  its  worship  without  chang- 
ing its  master,  for  the  God  of  the  Christians  is  also  our  God."§ 

The  change  of  feeling  which  such  notable  words  imply,  is 

*  Trowels  in  Southern  Abyssinia,  &c.,  by  Charles  Johnson,  M.R.C.S.,  vol.  i., 
ch.  xvii.,  p.  267  (1844). 

f  See  Algeria  and  Tunis,  by  Captain  J.  Clark  Kennedy,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  236 ; 
and  Algerie,  par  M.  E.  Carette,  pp.  121-122. 

t  Algeria,  by  J.  Reynell  Morell,  ch.  v.,  p.  84. 

§  St.  Marie,  ch.  v.,  p.  192. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  559 

manifested  in  a  thousand  ways.  Already  "  the  Arabs  of  Al- 
geria," says  Count  Saint  Marie,  "respect  the  Catholic  priest  as 
much  as  they  do  the  marabout."  He  notices  also  the  extraor- 
dinary affection  displayed  by  the  Arab  and  Moorish  students 
at  El  Biar  towards  the  Jesuits,  and  especially  towards  Father 
Brumault,  the  founder  of  that  institution,  from  which  the  bishop 
hopes  hereafter  to  obtain  a  native  clergy.  "  It  is  but  justice, 
adds  this  writer,  "  to  the  Jesuits,  to  say,  that  their  conduct  in 
this  land  of  misery  and  suffering  is  admirable.  .  .  .  There  is 
no  calamity  which  they  do  not  endeavor  to  alleviate;  and  the* 
French  soldiery,  though  little  inclined  to  bigotry,  respect  these 
men  for  their  uniform  courage  and  devotedness  to  the  cause  of 
humanity."* 

Even  English  Protestants,  in  spite  of  their  distaste  for  the 
religion  which  alone  forms  such  men,  are  constrained  to  utter  a 
cry  of  admiration  in  contemplating  their  virtues.  "  The  Padre 
Guiseppe,"  says  the  daughter  of  a  British  Consul-general  at 
Algiers,  "  was  born  of  a  high  and  noble  family,"  but  concealed 
his  name  with  so  much  success,  that  "I  believe  it  was  never 
heard  in  the  land  of  his  voluntary  exile."  uFrom  the  instant 
he  set  his  foot  on  the  shore  of  Algeria,  in  the  habit  of  a  religious 
order,  his  every  moment  had  been  devoted  to  the  service  of  his 
unfortunate  brethren."  In  that  service  he  expended  "  the  pro- 
duce of  the  sale  of  all  his  great  landed  estates,"  and  then  his 
life.  Such  was  his  "  charity,  holiness,  and  exceeding  humility, 
that  the  Mahomed ans  undeviatingly  showed  him  the  greatest 
respect,  and  spoke  of  him  with  scarcely  less  admiration  than  the 
Christians."  Thrice  he  was  stricken  with  the  plague,  but 
recovered,  so  that  "  the  Moors  used  to  think  he  had  a  charmed 
life."  The  furniture  of  his  cell  was  "  a  straw  paillasse"  and 
when  a  friend  of  the  narrator  sent  to  the  old  man,  who  had 
abandoned  honors  and  wealth  to  follow  Christ,  a  supply  of 
mattresses  and  linen,  they  were  secretly  given  away  to  "  two 
poor  suffering  old  slaves."  lie  died  at  eighty  years  of  age. 
"May  my  life,"  says  this  lady — who  still  finds  courage  to 
lament  "  the  great  dereliction  of  the  Church  of  Rome," — "  be 
influenced  by  his  holy  example,  and  may  my  death  be  like  his! 
.  .  .  My  parents  were  never  happier  than  when  they  welcomed 
him  to  their  house ;  indeed,  I  believe  the  whole  family  felt  as 
if  a  particular  blessing  rested  upon  it,  whilst  he  was  under  its 
roof."f 

But  we  may  not  linger  in  one  province,  since  so  many  others 
remain  to  be  visited.  "  Nothing,"  says  a  learned  English  writer, 

*  Ch.  viii.,  p.  276. 

f  &ix  Tears'  Residence  in  Algiers,  by  Mrs.  Broughton,  ch.  x.,  pp.  189-195. 


560  CHAPTER  VII. 

"can  prove  more  clearly  that  France  is  now  mistress  of  Alge- 
ria," than  the  fact,  of  which  he  gives  striking  examples,  "  that 
she  maintains  her  authority  by  other  than  military  force. 
What  that  force  is,  the  traveller  who  knows  the  Arabic  lan- 
guage, and  is  able  to  have  free  intercourse  with  the  native 
population,  can  easily  ascertain."  It  is,  he  adds,  the  palpable 
benefits  of  French  rule,  and  the  "  contrast  of  the  past  with  the 
present,"  which  have  "  thoroughly  reconciled  the  Arabs  to  their 
new  masters.  The  Hindoo,  we  have  been  told,  says  at  this  day 
to  his  English  rulers,  "  Day  by  day  the  estrangement  between 
us  is  becoming  more  and  more  complete ;"  but  the  Arab  of  Al- 
geria reasons  thus  with  his  fellow  Arab  of  Tunis,  or  Morocco. 
" l  We  hare  our  freedom,'  said  a  French  Sbahi,  in  my  hearing, 
to  ITamed,  '  and  we  appreciate  it.  I  feel  that  I  am  a  man,  and 
I  endeavor  to  act  as  such.  .  .  But  in  your  country,  what  are  you? 
Yon  are  reviled  and  ill-treated  by  a  parcel  of  ignorant  and  das- 
tardly Mamlooks,  and  you  are  kicked  about  like  a  dog 

We  are,  it  is  true,  under  the  dominion  of  Nazarenes,  but  they 
are  honorable  men  ;  whereas  you  are  under  the  scum  of  Naza- 
renes,  Greek  renegades,  perfidious  Mamlooks, — a  destructive 
legacy  of  Turkish  treachery,  infamy,  and  usurpation."* 

"Closer  acquaintance,"  adds  a  German  Protestant,  "has 
greatly  conciliated  the  Mussulmen  to  their  antagonists  in  faith, 
and  they  do  not  now  consider  the  presence  of  Christians  as 
desecrating  their  places  of  worship."  And  he  sums  up  his 
candid  reflections  with  this  comparison :  "A  great  improvement 
in  the  lot  of  the  Algerine  Arabs  has  been  the  result  of  their  con- 
quest by  France In  a  moral  point  of  view,  the  French 

have  some  right  to  be  satisfied  with  the  results  of  their  rule  in 
Algeria,  when  contrasting  what  they  have  done  in  twenty-three 
years  with  England's  century  in  India  !"f 

*  Ruined  Cities  within  Numidian  and  Carthaginian  Territories,  by  N.  Davis, 
ch.  vii.,  pp.  159,  163,  170  (1862).  An  Arab  chief,  "  famous,  among  other  ex- 
ploits, for  the  massacre  of  the  French  garrison  of  Biscara,"  and  "  determined 
either  to  expel  the  invaders  or  die  in  the  attempt,"  confessed  to  Mr.  Davis  in  a 
later  interview,  "  that  the  French  conquest  was  so  thoroughly  secured,  and 
that  the  Arabs  generally  were  so  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  change"  that  he 
had  abandoned  every  hostile  intention.  P.  222. 

f  The  Tricolor  on  the  Atlas,  from  the  German  of  Dr.  Wagner,  by  Francis 
Pulszky,  ch.  x.,  p.  401.  "  Autrefois  le  marabout  seul  pratiquait  la  culture  des 
lettres.  L'homme  d'epee,  comme  nos  barons  du  moyen  age,  avait  tout  savoir 

en  mepris Les  arabes  se  sont  apercus  que  1'instruction  etait  un  titre  a 

nos  favours.  Nombre  d'entre  eux,  enfin,  se  sont  dit  avec  une  resignation 
melancolique  ces  paroles  que  j'ai  recueillies  un  jour :  '  Autrefois  nous  pouvions 
vivre  avec  1'ignorance,  car  le  calme  et  le  bonheur  etaient  parmi  nous ;  mais 
dans  ces  temps  de  perturbation  que  nous  sommes  obliges  de  traverser,  il  faut 
que  la  science  nous  vienne  en  aide.'  Ainsi  notre  influence  accomplit  lente- 
ment,  jusqu'au  sein  du  desert,  cette  osuvre  civilisatrice,"  &c.  Lea  Mceurs  du 
Desert,  par  le  General  E.  Daumas,  p.  384  (5me  edition). 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  561 

Let  ns  quit  Algeria,  and  going  eastwards  we  come  to  the 
province  of  Tunis.  Here  also  the  influence  of  Christian  France 
is  yearly  increasing.  When  the  last  new  church  was  built,  the 
Bey  refused  to  sell  the  site  for  which  application  had  been  made 
to  him,  but  insisted  upon  presenting  it  as  a  free  gift.*  Here  the 
Abbe  Bourgade,  the  author  of  the  Soirees  de  Carthage,  "  has 
succeeded  by  his  evangelical  zeal  in  erecting  a  hospital  at  Tunis, 
from  charitable  sources  alone,  for  the  poor  Christians."  He 
has  also  founded  "the  European  college,  under  the  direction 
of  zealous  and  learned  missionaries,  where  the  Mussulman  and 
Jewish  children  are  instructed  together  with  the  Christian," — 
to  the  astonishment  of  all  who  witness  so  unexpected  a  triumph 
over  the  most  inveterate  passions  and  prejudices.  Lastly,  when 
the  Bey,  Ahmed  Pacha,  visited  France  in  1846,  he  addressed  these 
parting  words  to  the  attendants  who  assisted  at  his  embarka- 
tion. u  Others  have  aspired  to  the  title  of  'pilgrim  of  Mecca,*" 
let  mine  be  hadgy  framdgy,  '  the  pilgrim  of  European  civiliza- 
tion.' "f  Is  the  prayer  of  St.  Louis  about  to  be  accomplished  ? 

One  does  not  expect  to  find  Protestant  missions  in  North 
Africa,  and  the  only  attempts  which  appear  to  have  been  made 
are  thus  described.  "A  station  was  occupied  at  Tunis  by  Mr.. 
Ewald  and  others,  from  1829  to  1846,  under  the  London  society. 
It  has  since  been  abandoned.";):  Mr.  Ewald  himself  relates, 
with  cautious  indignation,  that  he  had  previously  been  forced 
to  quit  Algiers  by  the  peremptory  orders  of  the  Due  de  Rovigo 
against  Protestant  preaching.  He  consoles  himself,  however, 
with  the  assurance,  that  "many  a  son  of  Abraham  had  been 
made  acquainted  with  the  Redeemer," — an  assertion  which 
presently  dwindles  into  the  statement,  that  u  several  hundred 
copies  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  had  been  circulated,"!  which  our 
knowledge  of  the  effects  of  Bible  distribution  does  not  permit 
us  to  accept  as  an  equivalent  fact. 

The  year  after  Mr.  Ewald  departed  from  Tunis,  where  he  only 
repeated  his  Algerian  experience,  a  fresh  attempt  was  made  by 
some  Scotch  missionaries.  Mr.  Margoliouth  reported  to  Lord 
Palmerston,  in  1847,  that  they  had  established  two  important 
schools,  from  which  great  results  might  be  expected,  and  that 
they  were  about  to  "  erect  an  edifice"  for  a  church,  which,  he 
cheerfully  anticipated,  would  effectually  stop  "  the  taunt  in  the 
mouths  of  the  French  Roman  Catholics  against  British  Prot- 
estants." The  result  was  not  in  accordance  with  his  hopes.  A 

*  Description  de  la  Regence  de  Tunis,  par  le  Dr.  Louis  Frank,  2de  par  tie. 
th.  xviii.,  p.  205. 
f  Dr.  Frank,  p.  214. 

I  The  Land  of  the  Morning,  by  H.  B.  Whitaker  Churton,  ch.  ix.,  p.  155. 
§  Journal  of  Mixxionary  Labors,  &c.,  by  Rev.  F.  C.  Ewald,  introd.,  p.  7. 

87 


562  CHAPTER   VII. 

few  disciples  were  collected,  of  the  same  class  which  China  and 
Hindustan  have  furnished  to  British  missionaries,  but  of  such 
extreme  irregularity  of  conduct  that  they  fell  under  the  observa- 
tion of  the  native  authorities ;  and  when  their  teachers  appealed 
to  Sir  Thomas  Reade,  the  Consul-general,  that  officer,  whose 
religious  prepossessions  did  not  blind  him  to  the  real  character 
of  these  "sons  of  Abraham,"  coldly  declined  to  afford  protec- 
tion to  " those  wretches"  And  then  came  the  usual  climax, 
unwillingly  related  by  Mr.  Margoliouth  himself  in  1850,  "The 
mission,  the  chapel,  and  the  schools  were  abandoned. "* 

Ten  years  later,  an  Anglican  clergyman  laments  that  the 
European  Protestants  in  Algeria  are  more  likely  to  lose  their 
own  shadowy  religion,  than  to  communicate  it  to  others.  Thus, 
at  Medeah,  where  they  are  too  few  to  possess  an  "  Oratoire," 
he  is  led  to  make  the  following  observation  :  "It  is  not  to  be 
marvelled  at  if  the  numerous  scattered  Protestants  of  Algeria 
present  too  often  an  indifferentism  greater  than  that  of  their 
Koman  Catholic  neighbors,  and  if  their  children  lose  all  pro- 
fession of  any  form  of  religion."f  Yet  we  have  seen  examples 
of  Chinese,  Hindoos,  and  Cingalese,  and  shall  find  similar  cases 
of  Africans,  and  even  of  American  Indians,  who,  though  de- 
prived for  half  a  century  of  their  Catholic  teachers,  still  clung 
to  their  religion  with  unshaken  fidelity,  while  their  children 
could  repeat  with  accuracy  the  catechism,  which  their  parents, 
still  zealous  and  fervent,  had  taught  them. 

One  consolation,  however,  was  reserved  for  this  Protestant 
clergyman  during  his  travels  in  North  Africa.  The  Mahometans, 
he  relates  with  satisfaction,  displayed  a  marked  preference  for 
the  Protestant  over  any  other  form  of  the  Christian  religion. 
They  did  not  fully  appreciate  the  British  Constitution,  but 
"  about  our  religion  they  had  clearer  ideas.  The  Imaums  had 
told  them  that  we  were  nearer  the  Moslems  than  any  other 
of  the  Western  people.":):  The  Imaums  were  not  mistaken,  but 
this  is  more  than  we  can  venture  to  affirm  of  Mr.  Tristram. 
"The  popularity  of  the  English  with  the  Arab  population  of 
Algeria,"  says  another  British  traveller,  whose  acuteness  was 
less  clouded  by  religious  self-complacency,  is  entirely  due  to  the 
pious  expectation  of  the  followers  of  the  Prophet,  "  that  the 
English  may,  some  day  or  other,  become  good  Mussulmen" 
u  The  English  are  righteous,"  said  an  Arab  to  Mr.  Davis,  "  and 
the  friends  of  Idam"§  And  this  opinion  is  founded,  not  only 

*  A  Pilgrimage  to  the  Land  of  my  Fathers,  by  the  Rev.  Moses  Margoliouth. 
vol.  i.,  pp.  281,  382. 

f  Tristram,  The  Great  Sahara,  ch.  iii.,  p.  42. 
$  Ch.  x.,  p.  168. 
§  Ruined  Cities,  &c.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  222. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  563 

upon  the  rebuilding  of  Moslem  mosques  in  India  by  the  British 
authorities,  but  upon  a  popular  tradition  to  this  effect:  "The 
envoys  sent  by  the  blessed  Prophet  to  ask  the  Christian  nations 
to  become  believers  in  the  true  faith,  met  with  a  downright 
refusal  in  every  case  save  that  of  England,  which  returned  for 
answer,  '  We  will  consider  about  it.'  "*  The  Moslems"  are  far 
more  sanguine  of  the  conversion  of  Mr.  Tristram,  with  whom 
they  were  probably  as  much  amused  as  the  French  officers  to 
whom  he  explained  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  than  he  can  be 
of  the  sympathy  of  Arabs  with  the  piebald  religion  of  Hoad- 
ley,  Simeon,  and  Pusey. 


EGYPT    AND   THE   NILE. 

We  have  now  reached  Egypt,  still,  as  of  old,  a  land  of  bond- 
age and  shame.  "The  Christians  of  Egypt,"  says  one  whose 
mission  it  is  to  unite  them  in  one  household,  "  may  be  compared 
to  the  children  of  Israel,  living  under  the  dominion  of  Pharaoh ; 
and  this  state  of  things  will  continue  till  European  predomi- 
nance, either  by  counsel  or  by  the  sword,  like  Moses  of  old  with 
his  rod,  succeed  in  freeing  them  from  the  servitude  of  ages."f 
Yet  here  also  we  may  trace  the  eternal  contrast  between  the 
Church  and  the  Sects ;  here,  also,  the  first  has  produced  mar- 
tyrs, the  latter  only  merchants  ;  the  first  has  drawn  to  herself 
the  children  of  error,  the  last  have  been  sucked,  one  after  an- 
other, into  the  abyss  of  apostasy  ;  the  first  has  struggled  to 
gather  all  into  one  fold,  the  last  to  scatter  even  what  was 
united ;  the  first  has  done  the  work  of  God,  the  last  have  been 
active  only  in  the  service  of  the  Evil  One.  Here  is  the  latest 
example  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Sects  do  his  bidding. 

The  Christian  Copts,  now  numbering  only  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand,  who  have  continually  lapsed  into  Islamism,J 
among  whom  the  rite  of  circumcision  is  commonly  practised, 
whose  priests,  as  M.  de  Chabrol  remarks,  "  are  generally  as 
ignorant  as  the  lowest  of  the  people,"§  and  whom  heresy  has 
degraded  almost  below  the  .level  of  the  Turk,  disposed  them- 
selves on  a  recent  occasion  to  seek  by  a  return  to  unity  the  gifts 
and  blessings  which  they  had  forfeited.  "Four  years  iiad 
elapsed  since  the  death  of  their  last  patriarch,"  says  the  Fran- 

*  Through  Algeria,  by  M.  S.  Crawford,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  211  (1863). 

f  The  Bishop  of  Fez,  and  Apostolic  Delegate  in  Egypt ;  Annals,  Feb.,  18-56, 
vol.  xvii.,  p.  251. 

{  Histoire  de  VEgypte,  par  M.  J.  J.  Marcel,  de  Flnstitut  de  PEgypte,  ch.  iv., 
p.  120. 

§  Essai  sur  les  Hf&urs,  &c.,  ap.  Pancoucke,  tome  xviii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  19  ;  ch.  ii, 
p.  61. 


564  CHAPTER   VII. 

eiscan  Bishop  Guasco,  apostolic  delegate  in  Egypt,  writing 
from  Cairo  in  the  year  1856,  "  and  the  Copts  had  not  yet  agreed 
in  the  election  of  a  successor.  Finding  it  impossible  to  come 
to  an  agreement  among  themselves,  the  Coptic  hishops  and  the 
leading  men  of  their  nation  unanimously  resolved  to  have  re- 
course to  me  for  the  choice  of  their  patriarch.  Of  course  I 
could  not  accept  any  such  mission,  except  with  a  view  to  rec- 
oncile Alexandria  with  Rome ;  and  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  I  should  have  succeeded,  if  the  English  Methodists 
had  not  interfered.  These  men,  although  they  had  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  the  matter,  and  no  one  asked  their  inter- 
ference, yet  managed,  by  means  of  intrigues  with  their  consul, 
to  induce  the  Viceroy  of  Egypt,  by  religion  a  Turk,  to  elect  a 
Christian  patriarch,  and  to  impose  him  upon  the  schismatical 
Copts  as  their  administrator.  The  whole  affair  was  contrived 
by  the  power  and  intrigues  of  the  Protestants."  And  thus,  by 
the  intervention  of  English  Protestants,  a  quarter  of  a  million 
of  sectaries,  ignorant  of  the  first  elements  of  Christianity,  were 
replunged  into  the  miseries  from  which  they  seemed  about  to 
escape,  in  order  that  the  Church  might  be  hindered  from  per- 
forming her  divine  mission  by  imparting  to  them  religion  and 
civilization. 

But  there  is  nothing  in  this  fact  to  surprise  us.  It  is  the 
mission  of  Protestantism  to  scatter  and  destroy.  In  such 
triumphs  its  emissaries  find  their  delight ;  and  we  have  seen, 
in  various  lands,  that  they  openly  avow  their  preference  of 
Buddhism,  Islamisrn,  or  any  other  form  of  evil,  to  the  Catholic 
Church.  Here  are  fresh  examples  of  the  same  fact.  A  Prot- 
estant clergyman,  of  the  High  Church  school,  though  he 
represents  the  schismatical  Coptic  patriarch  as  spending  hia 
whole  day  in  smoking  and  sleeping,  and  hopelessly  sunk,  like 
his  flock,  in  ignorance  and  sloth,  observes  with  gravity  that 
"  he  occupies  the  see  of  St.  Mark  ;"  but  this  writer  does  not  so 
much  as  once  allude  to  the  Catholics  of  Egypt,  whose  prelates 
and  congregations  more  candid  Protestants  will  presently 
describe  to  us,  lest  he  should  be  obliged  to  confess  their 
superiority.*  "Mahommedanism,"  says  another  Protestant 
minister,  who  bears  the  title  of  "Doctor  of  Divinity,"  and 
was  not  content  with  silent  animosity,  "  was  some  improvement 
upon  the  system  which  it  supplanted," — that  is,  "  Christianity 
in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  !"  And  then  this  professor  of 
theology  says,  "  It  is  really  a  relief  to  pass  from  one  of  these 
idol-shrines  into  the  stern  simplicity  of  a  Moslem  mosque." 
He  had  just  come  out  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 

*  See  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  by  the  Rev.  J.  A.  Spencer,  M.A.  (1850). 


MISSIONS    IN    AFRICA.  565 

and  this  was  the  reflection  which  that  place  suggested  to 
him.* 

The  language  of  this  gentleman  deserves  a  moment's  atten- 
tion, not  perhaps  for  its  own  sake,  but  because  it  reveals  a 
condition  of  mind  almost  peculiar  to  English  Protestants.  Ma- 
hometanism,  he  says,  was  an  "  improvement"  upon  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries.  Now  it  was  during  this 
very  period,  that  the  world  was  illumined  by  the  presence  of 
such  men  as  St.  Chrysostom  and  St.  Jerome,  St.  Augustine  and 
St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  St.  Hilary  and  St  Benedict,  St.  Simeon 
and  St.  Gregory  of  Tours;  and  by  such  women  as  St.  Genevieve 
and  St.  Clotilde.  It  was  during  this  period  also,  which  he 
selects  for  unfavorable  comparison  with  Islamism,  that  Chris- 
tianity encountered  and  overcame  the  greatest  trial  which  any 
system  or  polity,  human  or  divine,  has  ever  survived.  The 
Roman  empire  was  then  in  the  agonies  of  dissolution,  and  the 
wave  of  barbarism  had  inundated  Europe  from  the  Elbe  to  the 
Mediterranean.  Before  this  storm  every  thing  perished  except 
the  Church.  "  It  was  the  Christian  Church"  says  an  eminent 
Protestant,  "  which  saved  Christianity,  which  vigorously  re- 
sisted both  the  internal  dissolution  of  the  empire  and  barba- 
rism ;  which  conquered  the  barbarians,  and  became  the  bond, 
the  medium,  and  the  principle  of  civilization  between  the 

Roman  and  barbarian  worlds Had  the  Christian  Church 

not  existed,  the  whole  world  must  have  been  abandoned  to 
purely  material  force.  The  Church  alone  exercised  a  moral 
power."  And  even  this  is  not  all.  "  From  that  epoch"  says 
H.  Guizot,  "  the  Church  powerfully  assisted  in  forming  th^ 
character  and  furthering  the  development  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion.'^ And  not  only  did  she  save  at  this  crisis  in  the  world's 
history  both  Christianity  and  civilization ;  not  only  did  she  pre- 
serve the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  the  apostolic  traditions;  but  she 
rescued  from  'destruction,  in  spite  of  the  barbarians,  jurispru- 
dence, letters,  and  philosophy.  It  was  during  this  very  con- 
vulsion, which  upheaved  and  shattered  the  whole  framework 
of  society,  that  the  monasteries  became,  as  M.  Guizot  observes, 
"  philosophical  schools  of  Christianity — it  was  there  that  intel- 
lectual men  meditated,  discussed,  taught."  And  once  more. 
Contrasting  the  intellectual  life  of  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
societies  of  this  very  epoch,  the  same  distinguished  person  ob- 

*  The  Desert  of  Sinai,  by  H.  Bonar,  D.D.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  63.  Dr.  Wolff  ex- 
presses his  astonishment  "  that,  not  only  Unitarians,  but  also  some  orthodox 
Christians,  should  assert  that  Muhammedanism  is  free  from  idolatry,"  since 
its  disciples  "  worship  saints,  the  black  stone  at  Mecca,"  &c.  Travels  and  Ad- 
ventures, ch.  xviii.,  p.  310. 

f  History  of  Civilization  in  Europe,  Lect.  ii. 


566  CHAPTER  VII. 

serves,  that  the  latter  alone  "  were  active  and  potent  at  once  In 
the  domain  of  intellect,  and  in  that  of  reality  ;  their  activity  is 

rational,  and  their  philosophy  popular philosophy  and 

religion  were  saved  (by  the  Church  of  the  fifth  and  sixth  cen- 
turies) from  the  ruin  which  menaced  them."  So  that  M. 
Guizot  does  not  hesitate  to  declare,  in  spite  of  prejudices  as 
imperious  and  tyrannical  as  ever  oppressed  a  noble  and  gener- 
ous heart,  that  "  it  may  be  said  without  exaggeration  that  the 
human  mind,  proscribed,  beaten  down  by  the  storm,  took 
refuge  in  the  asylum  of  churches  and  monasteries.""511 

" The  fifth  and  sixth  centuries"  says  a  learned  Prussian 
writer, — referring  especially  to  the  Armenians,  the  first  people 
who,  as  an  entire  nation,  embraced  Christianity,  and  at  that 
time  so  remarkable  by  the  position  which  they  occupied  with 
relation  to  the  rest  of  Christendom,  "were  the  brightest  period 
of  the  Armenian  literature,  during  which  a  vigorous  intellectual 
intercourse  was  carried  on  with  the  West :  the  classical  works 
of  Europe  were  translated,  with  a  profound  comprehension, 
instances  of  which  I  have  before  mentioned  in  the  works  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle  ;"  while  that  version  of  the  Bible  was  then 
executed,  "which,  in  the  judgment  of  the  Mechitarists,  and  of 
many  scholars,  is  the  finest  of  all  translations  of  the  Bible,  and 
remains  to  the  present  day  a  model  of  the  pure  Armenian 
!anguage."f 

And  it  is  of  such  an  epoch  as  this,  so  fruitful  in  blessings  to 
humanity,  so  inexpressibly  glorious  to  the  Church,  that  a 
British  Protestant  does  not  blush  to  say,  that  it  was  happily 
replaced  by  Islamism,  the  great  destroyer  both  of  religion  and 
civilization  !  Such  is  the  dull  imperturbable  audacity,  not  of 
lofty  and  disciplined  reason,  jealously  sifting  its  own  conclu- 
sions, but  of  blind  prejudice  and  contented  ignorance. 

Let  us  briefly  notice,  before  we  resume  our  progress  in  Africa, 
the  actual  state  of  religion  in  Egypt.  "Christianity  has  only 
remained  among  the  mixt  race  of  Copts,"  says  a  Protestant 
historian  of  Egypt.J  The  Catholics  he  does  not  even  mention  ; 
though  another  English  writer  observes,  apparently  with  regret, 
the  notorious  fact,  that  "  the  Church  of  Rome  has  induced  some 
to  forsake  the  tenets  of  their  ancestors" — including  the  tenet  of 
circumcision — "and  to  join  the  community  of  Catholic  Copts.'*§ 
She  has  induced  so  many  to  take  that  step,  that  a  recent  trav- 
eller in  these  lands  tells  us,  that  "  of  late  years  the  number 
of  Coptic  Catholics  has  greatly  multiplied,  and  it  is  now 

*  History  of  Civilization  in  France,  Lect.  iv. 

f  Von  Haxthausen.  ch.  x.,  pp.  337,  339. 

|  History  of  Egypt,  by  Samuel  Sharpe,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  345. 

§  Modern  Egypt,  by  Sir  Gardner  Wilkinson,  vol.  i.,  p.  395. 


MISSIONS   IN  AFRICA.  567 

estimated  at  one-third  of  the  whole  Christian  population  of 
Egypt."* 

Dr.  Durbin,  an  American  Protestant,  also  confesses  of  the 
oriental  Christians  generally,  "It  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
their  intercourse  witli  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  tends  to 
elevate  them  in  the  scale  of  civilization,  as  the  priests  sent  to 
serve  them,  being  generally  educated  men,  diffuse  European 
knowledge  as  well  as  manners  among  them."f  Dr.  Robinson, 
a  well-known  anti-Catholic  writer,  gives  this  description  of  a 
Catholic  oriental  prelate,  who  preached  a  sermon  in  Arabic,  at 
Cairo,  which  Dr.  Robinson  and  other  Protestant  ministers 
heard  :  "  He  was  a  man  of  noble  mien  ;  his  manner  dignified, 
full  of  gesture,  and  impressive.  His  sermon,  according  to  the 
judgment  of  my  companions,  was  well-ordered,  logical,  full  of 
good  sense  aud  practical  force.":):  And  the  increasing  power 
of  the  Church  in  these  unhappy  lands  is  freely  admitted  by  all 
the  better  class  of  Protestant  witnesses.  Thus  Mr.  Jowett 
noticed,  some  years  ago,  the  opinion  expressed  'by  Mr.  Barker, 
at  that  time  British  consul  at  Aleppo  :  u  All  Syria  and  Egypt 
he  considers  as  comparatively  occupied  by  the  Roman  Catho- 
lics :  even  Aleppo,  he  says,  is  gradually  drawing,  and  nearly 
drawn  over  to  them."§  We  shall  see  more  ample  illustrations 
of  these  facts  in  the  next  chapter. 

On  the  other  hand,  here  are  the  accounts  which  Protestant 
writers  give  of  the  operations  of  their  co-religionists,  backed  by 
the  wealth  of  England  and  America,  in  the  land  of  Egypt.  A 
few  examples  will  suffice.  "  I  am  sorry  to  tell  you,"  is  the 
report  addressed  from  Cairo  to  the  "  Malta  Protestant  College" 
in  1851,  "that  very  little  Protestant  progress  has  been  made 
here,  and  that  I  find  every  thing  poor  and  without  life.  But, 
on  the  contrary,  wherever  you  turn  your  eyes  you  see  Roman 
Catholic  progress  ;  buildings  everywhere,  churches  three  or 
four,  and  schools  three;  missions  in  the  villages,"  &c.,  &c.| 
And  exactly  the  same  report  is  given,  by  another  Protestant 
witness,  of  Alexandria.  "  Whilst  the  Roman  Catholics  estab- 
lish schools,  build  convents  and  churches,  and  have  a  large 
number  of  their  clergy  here,"  says  Mr.  Ewald,  the  fugitive  from 
Algiers  and  Tunis,  "  the-  Protestants  have  withdrawn  all  their 
missionaries,  and  Mr.  Winder  is  the  only  Protestant  minister 

*  Journal  of  a  Tour  in  Egypt,  &c.,  by  J.  Laird  Patterson,  M.A.,  app.,  p.  403 


f  Observations  in  the  East,  by  John  P.  Durbin,  D.D.,  Late  President  of  Dick 
iuson  College,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxxiv.,  p.  287. 
\  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine,  vol.  ii.,  p.  458. 
§  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  vi.,  p.  503. 
J  Fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Malta  Protestant  College,  p.  19. 


568  CHAPTER  VII. 

of  the  Gospel  at  this  important  place."*  Meanwhile,  the  prog- 
ress of  the  Catholic  mission  appears  to  have  been  so  well  sus- 
tained, that  in  1860  the  Lazarists  had  "  an  admirable  school," 
attended  by  two  hundred  boys  "  of  every  nation  and  religion;" 
the  Christian  Brothers  a  second,  which  was  equally  successful ; 
and  the  Sisters  of  Charity  a  third,  "  frequented  by  a  still  larger 
number  of  girls."f  At  Cairo,  by  the  same  date,  the  school  of 
the  Sisters  of  the  Good  Shepherd  counted  about  three  hundred 
pupils  ;  while  the  operations  of  the  Protestant  agents  are  thus 
described. 

"They  have  been,"  says  Dr.  Durbin,  in  1845,  "  about  fifteen 
years  engaged  in  the  mission  at  Cairo,  designed  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Copts ;  but  such  is  the  jealousy  of  these  native  Christians 
that  missionaries  can  have  but  little  access  to  them.  I  twice 
attended  Divine  service  in  the  mission  chapel,  and  found  per- 
haps twenty  persons  present,  and  most  of  these  Franks.  I 
think  there  were  not  a  half  a  dozen  native  Christians."  Yet 
these  missionaries  had  maintained  schools,  both  male  and  fe- 
male, for  many  years,  and  at  great  cost ;  but  with  the  same 
results  which  have  attended  their  educational  efforts  in  every 
other  land.  "  Most  of  them,"  Dr.  Durbin  confesses,  "  resume 
the  same  religious  views  and  feelings  which  prevail  among 
their  people.";):  They  are  perfectly  willing,  in  spite  of  their 
"jealousy,"  to  be  taught  and  fed  by  Protestant  missionaries, 
but  they  go  elsewhere  for  their  religion. 

And  this  fact  became  at  length  so  apparent,  even  to  those 
who  were  most  reluctant  to  admit  it,  that  an  Anglican  clergy- 
man informs  us,  only  six  years  after  Dr.  Durbin's  visit,  that 
"  Mr.  Lieder's  school,  the  Church  Missionary  Institute,  has, 
alas,  been  relinquished,  owing  to  the  expense  of  such  an  estab- 
lishment, and  the  supposed  inadequate  appearance  of  fruit."§ 
Nor  was  the  school  the  only  instrument  of  conversion  which 
sustained  a  check.  Even  the  preaching  appears  to  have  lan- 
guished, and  to  have  lost,  what  it  probably  once  possessed,  the 
merit  of  originality  ;  for  a  critical  English  traveller  relates,  a 
little  later,  that  "  Mr.  Lieder  gave  us  a  good  plain  sermon, 
probably  not  his  own  composition,  for  I  had  heard  it  before. "| 

Ten  years  later,  we  hear  once  more  of  the  Anglican  mission  at 
Cairo,  and  of  Mr.  Lieder,  its  pastor ;  but  no  progress  seems  to  have 
been  made  during  that  long  interval.  The  Sunday  congregation, 

*  Journal,  p.  264. 

f.  Un  Hiver  en  Egypte,  par  M.  Eugene  Poitou,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  448  (1860). 
1  Vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  67. 

§  The  Land  of  the  Morning,  by  H.  B.  Whitaker  Churton,  M.A.,  ch.  i.,  p.  10 
(1851). 

|  Shadows  of  the  East,  by  C.  Tobin,  p.  83  (1855). 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  569 

we  are  told  by  Dr.  Jobson,  amounted  to  "  about  thirty  persons, 
chiefly  English."* 

Dr.  Wilson  had  reported,  indeed,  and  perhaps  believed,  that 
"  a  spirit  of  serious  inquiry  had  begun  to  appear  among  a  few 
of  the  Copts  ;"f  but  the  inquiry  seems  to  have  been  barren  of 
results.  Even  Dr.  Bonar,  who  prefers  a  mosque  to  the  church 
of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  relates  of  the  American  missionaries  at 
Cairo,  that  "  the  door,"  at  which  they  have  been  knocking  for 
so  many  years,  "  does  not  seem  by  any  means  an  open  one."J 
Dr.  Yates  also  deplores  that  the  Protestant  agents  have  so  com- 
pletely failed  to  persuade  the  natives  to  regard  them  as  religious 
teachers,  in  any  sense  whatever,  that  "  the  less  informed  Ma- 
hommedan,"  as  he  resentfully  styles  him,  "  supposes  that  the 
people  called  Christians" — he  means  Protestants — "have  no 
religion  at  all."§ 

Yet  these  gentlemen  sometimes  make  an  Egyptian  convert, 
as  we  learn  from  the  narrative  of  Mr.  Petherick,  British  consul 
in  the  Soudan.  His  own  interpreter  at  Cairo  had  married  an 
English  girl,  and  visited  England.  "Previous  to  his  marriage 
he  had  adopted  Christianity,  and  assured  me  that  he  attended 
scrupulously  to  his  religious  duties,  and  accompanied  his  wife 
every  Sunday  to  the  Protestant  church.  However,  I  may  as 
well  state  that  two  years  later,  after  the  death  of  his  English 
wife,  he  returned  to  his  former  faith,  and  married  a  couple  of 
Mohammedan  girls."|| 

The  facts,  then,  which  we  have  noticed  in  so  many  other 
regions  of  the  earth,  present  themselves  once  more  in  Egypt. 
We  need  not  multiply  them.  The  characteristics  of  Catholic 
and  Protestant  missions  are  everywhere  invariable. 

"  In  Lower  Egypt  alone,"  says  the  apostolic  delegate  whom 
we  have  already  quoted,  "  seventeen  martyrs  are  numbered  as 
belonging  to  one  order.  Our  religious,  immovable  at  their 
posts,  endured  exile,  imprisonment,  every  sort  of  trial  and  per- 
secution, and  death  itself.  Nothing  but  a  special  Providence 
could  assuredly  have  preserved  their  establishments  from  destruc- 
tion, menaced  as  they  have  been  through  ages  of  fanaticism ; 
but  at  length  the  day  has  arrived  when  Catholics  are  permitted 
publicly  to  open  their  churches,  and  to  found  schools  and  hos- 
pitals." And  then  he  shows  what  has  been  done  of  lute  under 
his  own  eyes.  "  During  the  sixteen  years  that  I  have  been  in 
the  position  of  apostolic  delegate,  it  has  afforded  me  great  satis- 

*  Australia,  with  Notes  by  the  Way,  by  F.  J.  Jobson,  D.D.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  34. 

f  Lands  of  the  Bible,  by  John  Wilson,  D.D.,  F.R.S.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  528. 

j  Ch.  Hi.,  p.  36. 

§  Modern  History  of  Egypt,  by  W.  Holt  Yates,  M.D.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  Hi.,  p.  85. 

\  Egypt,  the  Soudan,  &c.,  ch.  i.,  p.  7. 


570  CHAPTER   VII. 

faction  to  see  Catholic  churches  erected  here  for  all  the  oriental 
rites.  New  religious  bodies  have  also  afforded  us  their  zealous 
co-operation.  Thus,  in  1844,  this  vicariate  welcomed  priests  of 
St.  Vincent  of  Paul,  and  Sisters  of  Charity,  both  of  whom  are 
now  in  possession  of  very  fine  establishments  at  Alexandria. 
In  1846,  the  Sisters  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  from  Angers,  es- 
tablished themselves  at  Cairo,  where  they  now  have  a  nourish- 
ing seminary,  a  house  of  refuge,  and  an  orphanage.  These 
religious  also  conduct  a  day-school,  which  is  well  attended  by 
poor  Arabs.  In  1854,  there  was  founded  in  the  same  capital  an 
exce^ent  institution  for  the  education  of  youth,  confided  to  the 
care  of  the  Christian  Brothers.  What  can  be  the  cause  of  so 
great  a  change  ?  Has  not  God,  in  His  divine  mercy,  granted  it 
as  a  recompense  for  the  past,  in  consideration  of  the  labors  of 
the  former  missionaries,  of  their  patience  in  bonds,  and,  above 
all,  of  the  blood  which  they  so  generously  shed  for  the  faith?"* 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  this  reflection  of  the  apostolic 
delegate,  it  is  at  least  certain,  by  Protestant  testimony,  that  his 
own  colleagues  are  not  inferior  in  heroism  and  generosity  to 
their  martyred  predecessors.  "  I  allow,"  says  Dr.  Joseph 
Wolff,  in  explanation  of  his  own  residence  at  Cairo  during  the 
outbreak  of  cholera,  "  that  the. example  of  the  Pope's  mission- 
aries at  Cairo  induced  me  more  than  any  thing  else  to  prosecute 
my  journey  ;  for  while  during  the  plague  in  Egypt  the  Luther- 
an missionaries  shut  themselves  ^lp,  as  I  myself  (I  say  it  to  my 
shame)  did  at  Beyrouth,  when  there  during  the  plague  with 
my  wife  and  child,  the  missionaries  of  the  Propaganda  of  Rome 
visited  those  infected  with  that  disease,  so  that  six  Roman  mis- 
sionaries died  out  of  seven  ."f 

The  Christian  heroism  which  excited  the  admiration  of  Dr. 
Wolff  wras  natural  in  men  who  were  the  heirs  of  Claude  Sicard, 
the  representative,  as  has  been  well  said,  "  at  once  of  the  Church 
and  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences"  in  Egypt  ;:f  who  converted 
in  one  week  the  Greek  solitaries  of  the  Thebaid,  and  the  next 
enriched  Europe  with  those  luminous  essays  on  the  monuments, 
the  geography,  or  the  chemical  products  of  the  land  of  the 
Nile,  by  which  later  researches  have  been  aided  ;  and  who 
died  at  last  at  Cairo,  in  1726,  a  martyr  of  charity,  ministering 
to  the  victims  of  the  plague,  and  falling  himself  by  the  side  of 
those  whom  he  had  no  longer  power  to  bless. 

Let  us  leave  Cairo,  embark  on  the  Nile,  and  journeying 
towards  its  source  we  shall  come  to  Khartoum.  If  we  stay  for 
a  moment  at  this  place,  which  brings  us  almost  to  the  frontiers 

*  Annals,  ubi  supra. 

\  Journal,  p.  334. 

J  Cretineau  Joly,  tome  v.,  p.  17. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  571 

of  Abyssinia,  it  is  only  for  the  sake  of  noticing  an  account  of  the 
Mission  of  the  White  Nile,  by  one  of  those  candid  Protestants 
of  whom  we  have  encountered  so  many  in  these  pages.  This 
mission  has  lately  been  alluded  to  by  a  French  traveller,  who  is 
nominally  a  Catholic,  but  who,  like  too  many  of  his  countrymen, 
eeems  to  think  a  reputation  for  wit  the  highest  object  of  man's 
ambition,  especially  when  it  is  some  religious  topic  which 
inspires  the  sorry  jest.  M.  Charles  Didier  is  of  opinion  that  all 
"  pacific  missions"  are  necessarily  failures,  and  that  the  only 
apostles  who  can  achieve  success  are  those  who  travel,  like 
Mahomet,  sword  in  hand.*  An  English  writer  thus  describes, 
almost  at  the  same  moment,  the  work  in  which  the  Frenchman 
only  saw  an  opportunity  for  an  indifferent  joke. 

"  One  of  the  most  interesting  establishments  in  Soudan," 
says  Mr.  James  Hamilton,  in  1857,  "is  the  mission  for  the 
conversion  of  the  pagans  of  Central  Africa,  respectable  both  for 
its  object  and  the  character  of  the  men  who  compose  it."  Mr. 
Hamilton  then  notices  the  untimely  death  of  the  well-known 
Padre  Ryllo,  from  whose  enlightened  labors  great  results  had 
been  anticipated,  and  continues  thus  :  "  Should  the  mission  be 
crowned  with  success,  the  spiritual  conquest  of  the  vast  unknown 
regions  of  the  centre  will  be  amongst  the  most  glorious  triumphs 
of  modern  times.  Artificers  of  various  kinds,  the  pioneers  of 
civilization  and  religion,  are  attached  to  the  house,  so  that  the 
pupils  may  learn  and  carry  back  to  their  countrymen  many 
useful  arts.  The  Superior  takes  yearly  journeys  of  inspection 
up  the  White  Nile,  where  three  stations  have  been  established  ; 
and  if,  as  I  have  every  reason  to  believe,  his  patience  and 
discretion  equal  his  zeal  and  that  of  his  fellow-laborers,  they 
cannot  fail  in  time  to  overcome  the  immense  difficulties  which 
surround  their  undertaking.  Both  among  Turks  and  Arabs, 
Abuna  Suliman,  as  Dr.  Ignatius  Knoblecher  is  called,  enjoys  the 
highest  consideration  ;  far  and  near  I  heard  him  spoken  of  with 
respect,  and  even  by  the  Copts,  the  least  likely  persons  to 
appreciate  his  qualities.  This  is  already  a  great  success,  alone 
worth  the  large  sums  which  the  mission  has  cost,  for  it  is  the 
breaking  down  of  prejudices  of  color  and  religion,  if  not  as  old 
as  nature,  older  than  history  or  tradition."  This  intelligent 
and  conscientious  writer  next  proceeds  to  furnish  details  which 
appropriately  illustrate  the  primary  subject  of  these  volumes: 
'•  Many  of  the  missionaries  have  already  fallen  victims  to  the 
climate,  and  perhaps  also  to  the  excessive  austerity  of  their 
lives ;  but  in  dying  they  have  done  good.  Those  who  have  been 
long  enough  in  the  country  to  be  known  have  left  a  memory 

*  Cinq  writs  lieues  sur  le  Nil,  par  Charles  Didier,  ch.  iii. 


672  CHAPTER  VII. 

venerated  even  by  the  pagans,  and  the  funeral  chant  of  one 
who  died  last  year  at  his  station  up  the  river,  Don  Angelo  Ninco, 
a  gentleman  of  Verona,  is  still  sung  in  their  assemblies,  as  com- 
posed by  the  blacks  themselves."*  Have  we  not  reason  to  say, 
that  Catholic  missionaries  are  everywhere  and  always  the  same? 

The  honorable  testimony  of  Mr.  Hamilton  is  confirmed  by 
an  American  Protestant  traveller,  who  was  a  guest  of  the 
apostolic  prefect,  whose  "thorough  cultivation"  and  varied 
knowledge  he  warmly  eulogizes,  and  who  frankly  reports  "  the 
success  attending  the  efforts  of  the  Catholic  priests  in  Khartoum 
in  educating  children  ;"f  while  Mr.  Petherick  adds,  in  1861, 
that  some  of  the  Europeans,  "  and  also  Copts,  who  have  families, 
have  gladly  availed  themselves  of  this  establishment  for  their 
education.";]: 

Mr.  Hamilton  notices  with  regret  the  impiety  of  European 
traders,  whom  the  desire  of  gain  has  attracted  to  these  regions. 
"  Some  of  the  anecdotes  which  I  heard  when  at  Khartoum  of 
personal  violence  offered  to  the  Vicar-general  and  his  colleagues, 
and  submitted  to  although  they  had  ample  means  of  successful 
resistance,  raised  my  admiration  of  their  exemplary  patience." 

It  is  curious  that  even  in  these  remote  arid  almost  unvisited 
spots,  Protestant  writers  are  found  to  trace  for  us  the  contrast 
which  we  could  hardly  have  proved  without  their  assistance. 
"  A  certain  German  missionary,"  said  an  English  writer,  only 
a  few  months  before  Mr.  Hamilton  wrote  the  above  account, 
"well  known  in  this  part  of  the  world,  exasperated  by  the 
seizure  of  a  few  dollars,  advised  the  authorities  of  Aden  to 
threaten  the  '  combustion' "  of  the  place  where  he  was  mulcted. 
"A  traveller,"  Mr.  Burton  calmly  adds,  "even  a  layman,  is 
bound  to  put  up  with  such  trifles. "§ 


ABYSSINIA. 


And  now  let  us  pursue  our  journey,  and  enter  Abyssinia.  The 
history  of  missions  in  this  kingdom  has  been  written,  with  their 
usual  decision  of  style,  by  certain  Protestants,  most  of  whom 
were  never  within  a  thousand  miles  of  the  place,  or  had  any 
knowledge  whatever  of  the  events  which  they  affect  to  describe 
but  what  they  had  borrowed  from  the  reports  of  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries. Our  acquaintance  with  Abyssinia,  Congo,  and  other 
interior  regions  of  Africa,  was  derived  exclusively,  as  even  the 
English  authors  of  the  Universal  History  remark,  "from  the  mis- 

*  Sinai,  tlie  Hedjaz,  and  8oudan,l>y  James  Hamilton,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  332  (1857). 
f  Journey  to  Central  Africa,  by  Bayard  Taylor,  ch.  xxiii.,  p.  300. 
j  Egypt,  tlie  Soudan,  and  Central  Africa,  by  John  Petherick,  F.R.G.8., 
H.  B.  M.  Consul  for  the  Soudan,  ch.  vrii.,  p.  131. 
§  First  Footsteps  in  East  Africa,  ch.  i.,  p.  13  (1856). 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  573 

sionaries  who  have  penetrated  into  those  torrid  and  unwholesome 
climes,  and  amongst  the  most  barbarous  nations,  with  the  utmost 


of  continual  martyrdoms — "made  such  dreadful  havoc  amongst 
them,  that  scarce  one  in  ten  outlived  the  first  six  months."* 

In  spite  of  these  notorious  facts,  some  modern  Protestant 
writers — exulting  in  the  certainty,  as  they  deemed,  that  Catho- 
lics had  been  finally  driven  from  Abyssinia,  an  anticipation 
which  we  shall  see  hereafter  has  been  signally  disappointed — 
have  published  to  the  world  their  view  of  the  circumstances  which 
led  to  this  result.  One  official  writer,  willing  to  borrow  weapons 
in  such  a  cause  from  any  arsenal,  is  not  ashamed  to  quote  what 
he  truly  calls  "  Gibbon's  melancholy  picture  of  the  wicked  arts 
practised  by  the  Jesuits,  "f  The  Jesuits  who  went  to  Abyssinia, 
says  the  Rev.  Professor  Lee,  in  his  preface  to  Dr.  Gobat's 
Journal,  were  prodigies  of  infamy  and  cupidity, — his  actual 
words  are  somewhat  coarser, — and  had  no  other  motive  but  to 
pilfer  the  precious  metals  and  other  treasures  with  which  this 
opulent  country  abounded.  It  would  be  quite  as  rational  to 
say,  that  St.  Paul  went  to  Greece  with  the  same  design. 

Abyssinia,  as  M.  Desvergers  not  long  ago  remarked,  is  a  re- 
gion so  utterly  destitute  of  wealth,  though  fertile  in  agricultural 
resources,  that  "nothing  but  a  purely  religions  motive''  could 
have  induced  the  educated  and  well-born  missionaries  of  France, 
Spain,  and  Portugal  to  enter  it  ;J  and  a  modern  missionary, 
Padre  Montuosi,  writing  from  Gondar  in  1840,  tells  us  that  he 
found  one  of  the  kings  of  this  country  "  clothed  only  with  a 
pair  of  drawers,  and  having  for  his  throne  a  miserable  rag  of 
cloth  spread  over  a  little  straw."§  A  recent  English  traveller 
records  also  his  astonishment  at  finding  "  the  capital  of  one  of  the 
most  powerful  kingdoms  of  Ethiopia  nothing  but  a  large  strag- 
gling village  of  huts  mostly  thatched  with  straw."!  Other  writers 
will  presently  assist  us  still  further  in  correcting  the  fables  of  Dr. 
Lee,  in  which  a  corrupt  imagination  has  supplied  all  the  facts, 
and  a  malice  verging  on  frenzy  has  elaborated  all  the  comments. 
Almost  the  only  book 'on  which  he  founds  his  calumnies,  is 
Ludolf's  pretended  History  of  Ethiopia,  of  which  an  English 
.Protestant  has  lately  said:  "  It  is  such  an  evident  compilation 
of  what  ought  to  be  the  faith  of  the  Abyssinian  Church,  rather 

*  Universal  History,  vol.  xi.,  p.  163. 

f  Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  849  (1854). 

\  Abysainie,  par  M.  A.  N.  Desvergers,  p.  10. 

8  Annals,  vol.  ii.,  p.  348. 

Jl  Parkyns,  Life  in  Abyssinia,  vol  i.t  cli.  xiii.,  p.  161. 


574:  CHAPTER  VII. 

than  what  it  ever  was,  or  is  at  the  present  day,  that  any  account 
founded  upon  it  would  be  one  of  the  grossest  impositions  that 
could  be  palmed  upon  the  reading  public."*  Perhaps  Dr.  Lee 
had  partly  derived  his  inspiration  also  from  Bruce,  who  calls 
Father  Pae'z  an  impostor,  f  and  Father  Lobo  "  the  greatest  liar 
amongst  the  Jesuits" — such  are  the  amenities  of  Protestant 
literature;  although  Dr.  Beke,  a  learned  and  honest  Protestant, 
who  visited  Abyssinia  at  a  recent  date,  confesses  that  "Paciz 
discovered  and  described  the  source  of  the  river  Abai  long 
before  Bruce,"  and  even  hints  that  the  latter  probably  "  com- 
posed his  own  account  from  the  description  furnished  by  the 
very  missionaries  so  much  slandered  and  depreciated  by  him.";). 

But  these  are  the  wreapons  with  which  her  enemies  assault 
the  Church,  and  Professor  Lee  is  willing  to  reveal  his  own 
special  qualifications  as  a  Christian  historian,  by  informing  us, 
with  respect  to  the  heresies  of  Nestorius  and  Dioscorus,  that 
"  the  disputes  which  have  so  long  divided  the  Eastern  Church 
amount  to  nothing  more  than  a  battle  about  words."  And 
that  we  may  still  more  clearly  appreciate  his  zeal  for  the  honor 
of  God,  he  immediately  adds,  "  Both  Monophysites  and  Nes- 
torians  hold  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord ;  their  disputes  respect 
only  the  mode  of  His  incarnation  !"§  Why  should  Dr.  Lee 
show  more  respect  for  the  virtues  of  Catholic  missionaries, 
than  he  does  for  the  Incarnation  of  our  Redeemer?! 

Let  us  turn  from  this  gentleman  to  graver  writers,  who  possess 
a  more  accurate  knowledge  both  of  Christianity  and  of  its 
history  in  Abyssinia.  From  them  we  learn  that  Frumentius, 
the  disciple  of  St.  Athanasius,  was  its  first  bishop ;  and  M. 
D'Abbadie  reports  that  the  Abyssinian  Christians,  fallen  as  they 
are,  still  celebrate  a  yearly  festival  in  his  honor.  Ethiopia, 
subject  from  the  first  to  the  patriarchal  see  of  Alexandria, 
embraced  like  it  the  heresy  of  Dioscorus,  and  from. that  hour  its 
long  history  of  suffering  began.  The  Empress  Theodora,  an  eager 
partisan  of  the  Eutychian  errors,  sent  emissaries  to  propagate 
them  in  Ethiopia;  and  though  it  is  now  impossible  to  trace 
with  minute  accuracy  the  gradual  progress  of  heresy  in  these 
regions,  it  seems  probable  that  by  the  ninth  century,  at  the 

*  Johnston,  Travels  in  Southern  Abyssinia,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  80. 

f  Travels,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  617,  623. 

%  Memoir e  Justificatif  en  rehabilitation  des  Peres  Paez  et  Jerome  Lobo,  p.  69. 
Of.  Hzstoire  de  ce  qui  s'est  passe  au  royaume  d'Ethiopie,  p.  234  (Paris,  1629). 

§  History  of  the  Church  of  Abyssinia,  p.  5. 

I  A  Protestant  bishop^  observes,  "  the  pious  Theodora  had  the  satisfaction 
of  establishing  in  Abyssinia  the  tenets  and  discipline  of  the  Jacobites,  a  sect 
who  held  the  doctrine  of  the  one  nature."  He  evidently  thought  it  of  little 
,  importance  whether  they  believed  in  one  nature  or  in  twenty.  Nubia  and 
Abyssinia,  by  the  Right  Rev.  M.  Russell,  ch.  v.,  p.  199. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  575 

latest,  the  work  of  destruction  was  complete.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, till  the  sixteenth  that  Abyssinia,  still  nominally  Christian, 
was  finally  subjugated  by  the  Mahometan  forces  which  she  had 
so  obstinately  resisted,  and  thus  incurred  the  last  and  most 
grievous  penalty  which  Divine  justice  has  inflicted  upon  all 
the  heretical  churches  of  the  East.  They,  as  De  Bonald  said 
of  the  Greeks,  have  become,  like  the  Jews,  an  accursed  people, 
"The  only  Christian  nation  subject  to  masters  who  are  not  so."' 

And  now  the  downfall  of  Abyssinia  was  accomplished. 
"Islamism,"  as  M.  D'Abbadie  remarks,  "at  the  present  day: 
so  much  enfeebled  in  Europe,  has  revived  in  Africa."  Al-  . 
ready  it  has  "  perverted  to  its  doctrines  the  savage  or  half- 
Christian  tribes  which  surround  Abyssinia,  and  having  ex- 
cluded it  from  the  rest  of  the  Christian  world,  this  fatal  system 
keeps  encroaching  upon  and  gradually  absorbing  this  ill-fated 
country."  "The  Turks  and  Arabs,"  says  Werne,  "  are  just  as 
strenuous  in  their  exertions  to  make  proselytes  as  the  expensive 
European  missionaries  ;"*  and  heresy  is  too  weak  to  resist  them. 
"It  is  said,"  observes  Mr.  Warburton,  "that  considerable  num- 
bers annually  become  apostate  to  the  Moslem  creed,  for  the 
sake  of  marriage,  or  money,  or  both."f 

Such,  in  its  outlines,  is  the  history  of  the  Church  founded  by 
Frumentius,  and  once  guided  by  the  counsels  of  St.  Athana- 
sius  ;  and  such  the  results  of  its  separation  from  unity.  And 
now  let  us  see  what  Catholic  charity  has  attempted  towards  the 
rebuilding  of  this  ruined  temple. 

In  1550,  the  Patriarch  Nugnez,  chosen  by  St.  Ignatius  for 
this  perilous  mission  by  the  request  of  Julius  III.,  sailed  from 
Lisbon,  together  with  the  small  body  of  Portuguese  troops  by 
whose  heroic  valor  David,  king  of  the  Ethiopians,  was  assisted 
against  the  Mahometans.  In  his  suite  was  Father  Oviedo,  by 
whom  numerous  converts  were  made,  and  who  subsequently 
became  patriarch  in  his  turn ;  but,  after  seeing  many  of  his 
brethren  martyred,  was  finally  driven  into  exile  by  the  arts  of 
his  implacable  enemies,  and  exposed  to  perish  by  famine.^ 
Thus  far  partial  success,  constantly  checked  by  greater  reverses, 
had  attended  the  Catholic  missions.  In  1589,  as  Gibbon 
scoffingly  relates,  "  the  patience  and  dexterity  of  forty  years"§ 
seemed  at  length  to  have  triumphed ;  and  Pae'z  received  the 
solemn  abjuration  of  the  king,  who,  as  Mr.  Murray  observes, 
"  not  only  professed  himself  a  convert  to  the  Romish  faith,  but 
made  it  the  established  religion  of  his  dominions,  which  it  con- 

*  Expedition  to  discover  tJie  Sources  of  the  White  Nile,\ol.  i.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  89. 

f  Crescent  and  Cross,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  139. 

|  Nouveaux  Memoires  du  Levant,  tome  iv.,  pp.  277  et  seq. 

§  Ch.  xlvii. 


576  CHAPTER   VII. 

tinned  to  be  for  a  long  series  of  years."*  On  the  llth  of  De- 
cember, 1624,  the  Abyssinian  Church  solemnly  abjured  the 
Alexandrian  errors,  and  submitted  to  the  Holy  See. 

In  consequence  of  these  events,  which  appeared  to  establish 
religion  on  a  solid  basis,  Mendez  was  sent  as  patriarch ;  but 
once  again  the  people,  capricious  and  fickle  as  Greeks,  revolted  ; 
•and  at  the  death  of  Socinios,  in  1632,  his  successor  Facilidas, 
harassed  by  a  civil  war,  once  more  ordered  all  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries to  quit  the  kingdom.  From  that  hour  it  was  only  at 
the  risk  of  death  that  they  could  force  an  entrance.  Invariably 
massacred,  either  by  the  Mahometans,  or  by  the  still  more 
ferocious  Gallas  tribes,  they  could  henceforth  be  victims  only, 
not  apostles.  In  1698,  Louis  XIY.  sent  the  physician,  Foncet, 
attended  by  Father  Brevedent  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  "  I 
may  truly  say,"  was  the  report  which  Foncet  gave  of  the  latter, 
who  died  of  dysentery  after  entering  Ethiopia,  "  that  I  have 
never  known  a  man  more  bold  and  intrepid  in  all  dangers, 
more  firm  and  ardent  in  defending  the  interests  of  religion, 
more  modest  and  devout  in  his  whole  life  and  conversation.'^ 

Once  more,  in  1752,  three  Franciscan  Fathers,  fearlessly 
braving  death,  penetrated  even  to  Gondar,  in  the  time  of 
Yasous  II. ,  and  "  instructed  many  of  the  royal  family  in  the 
Catholic  faith  ;"J  but  the  king,  in  spite  of  his  attachment  to 
them,  was  ultimately  forced,  by  the  perpetual  anarchy  and 
disorder  which  reigned  among  his  ignorant  and  heretical  sub- 
jects, to  dismiss  them  from  the  kingdom.  And  so  this  unequal 
contest  continued ;  for  the  Church,  like  her  Divine  Head, 
never  abandons  those  whom  she  has  resolved  to  save,  and 
never  calls  in  vain  upon  the  servants  whom  she  invites  to  such 
labors.  She  knows  that  the  sure  prospect  of  suffering  and 
death  will  rather  animate  than  discourage  their  zeal.  Let  us 
briefly  state,  in  conclusion,  what  they  have  since  done  in  Abys- 
sinia, and  what  they  are  doing  at  the  present  hour. 

In  1840,  Father  Montuosi  wrote  in  these  words  from  Gondar 
to  his  friend  the  Abbate  Guarini,  at  Rome.  u  Towards  the 
middle  of  September,  1839,  we  left  Cosseir  for  Djeddah.  We 
embarked  on  board  an  Arabian  vessel,  engaged  in  carrying  corn 
for  the  governor  of  Egypt.  The  voyage  was  far  from  agreeable ; 
but  why  speak  of  privations  and  dangers?  We  accepted  them 
as  the  welcome  augury  of  the  sacrifice  which  we  were  going  to 
offer  in  the  heart  of  Ethiopia.  .  .  On  the  1st  of  November  we 
reached  Aduah,  the  first  important  city  of  Abyssinia  ;  Father 


*  Discoveries  in  Africa,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  36. 
|  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  iii.,  p.  299. 
i  Salt's  Travels  in  Abym?iia,  app.,  p.  34. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  577 

Sapito  came  to  meet  us.  ....  The  Mahommedans  have  here 
more  liberty  than  the  Christians.  Father  de'  Jacobis  and  I 
were  obliged  to  recite  the  Office  in  a  low  voice,  so  as  not  to  be 
overheard;  we  seldom  celebrated  Mass,  and  whenever  we  did, 
it  was  always  in  secret,  a»  if  in  the  catacombs."  Finally,  leav- 
ing Father  Jacobis  at  Adnah,  he  at  length  reached  Gondar, 
"  the  capital  whence  have  issued  at  different  epochs  so  many 
sanguinary  edicts  against  the  Catholic  missionaries."*  Let  us 
leave  him  here  for  a  moment,  and  return  to  his  companion, 
whom  he  had  left,  as  he  says,  u  not  without  tears,"  at  Aduah, 
like  Daniel  in  the  den  of  lions. 

On  the  23d  of  April,  1842,  Father  Jacobis  wrote  as  follows, 
from  Massouah,  to  the  Abbate  Spaccapietra,  at  Naples.  "  On 
the  14th  of  February,  the  day  on  which  we  quitted  Cairo  to 
pursue  our  journey  towards  Abyssinia,  we  were  witnesses  of  an 
edifying  sight.  In  that  city,  in  the  convent  of  the  Franciscans, 
were  assembled  bishops  and  missionary  priests ;  some  of  whom, 
recently  arrived  from  India  and  Arabia,  were  proceeding  to 
Rome  to  render  an  account  to  the  common  Father  of  the 
Faithful  of  their  apostolic  labors:  while  others  were  on  their 
way  to  Ethiopia  or  China,  to  till  the  places  which  the  martyrs 
had  left  vacant.  Prostrated  at  the  foot  of  the  same  altar,  we 
renewed  to  our  Lord  the  sacrifice  of  our  lives,  and,  after  bid- 
ding each  other  a  fraternal  and  last  farewell,  we  separated,  ap- 
pointing to  meet  again  in  heaven.'' 

Their  caravan  was  composed  of  ten  missionaries,  of  whom  six 
were  destined  for  the  interior  provinces  of  China.  In  four  days 
arid  nights,  travelling  chiefly  on  foot,  "  because  of  the  humble- 
ness of  our  means,"  they  reached  Suez.  litre,  a  week  later,. 
"  the  whole  city,  not  excepting  even  the  Mussulmans,  rendered 
homage  to  the  Catholic  religion,  by  hailing  with  admiration  the 
arrival  of  a  humble  colony  of  Nuns,  six  ladies  belonging  to  the 
Society  of  Jesus  arid  Mary,  who  were  on  their  way  from  Lyons, 
accompanied  by  the  Abbe  Caffarel,  to  found  a  school  for  girls 
at  Agra,  in  the  East  Indies."f  It  is  pleasant  to  know  that  the&e 
ladies  accomplished  their  long  pilgrimage  in  safety. 

Father  Jacobis,  to  whom  we  will  now  return,  was  on  this 
occasion  on  his  second  journey  to  Abyssinia,  having  conducted 
to  Rome,  in  1841,  a  body  of  Abyssinians  whom  he  had  induced 
to  pay  a  visit  to  the  Sovereign  Pontiff.  Two  laymen,  Captains 
Gaiinier  and  Ferret,  officers  of  the  staff,  have  recorded  the  re- 
sults of  his  journey.  "  The  Abbe  Jacobis  reached  Abyssinia," 
they  say,  "  at  a  moment  of  universal  anarchy,  in  consequence  of. 

/ 

*  Annals,  vol.  ii.,  p.  347. 
f  Vol.  iv.,  p.  46. 
38 


578  CHAPTER    VII. 

the  defeat  of  Ubie,  king  of  Tigre,  at  the  battle  of  Devra-Tabor. 
The  road  which  leads  from  Massouah  to  Aduah  was  full  of  the 
greatest  perils,  yet  M.  Jacobis  did  not  fear  to  return  to  his  post, 
and  all  the  revolted  chiefs  whom  he  met  on  the  way  treated  him 
with  the  greatest  respect.  A  large  number  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Aduah  went  out  to  meet  him,  and  greeted  him  as  a  father 
whom  they  rejoiced  to  see  again  after  so  long  an  absence." 
And  then  these  gentlemen  continue  their  report  as  follows. 

"  The  journey  of  M.  Jacobis  to  Rome  has  already  produced 
its  fruits.  The  Abyssinians  who  accompanied  him  are  now 
Catholics  from  conviction,  and  fear  not  to  avow  it  before  their 
countrymen.  They  have  the  greatest  veneration  for  the  Holy 

Father The  king,  Ubie,  has  the  highest  esteem  for  M. 

Jacobis,  and  sent  a  messenger  to  him  from  the  mountains  of 
Semen,  to  congratulate  him  on  his  arrival,  and  to  promise  him 
that,  if  he  should  recover  his  kingdom,  he  would  do  his  best  to 
be  of  service  to  him.  But  although  Ubie  should  not  reascend 
his  throne,  M.  Jacobis  would  not  be  without  protection'.  The 
most  powerful  chief  of  Tigre,  who  knew  by  reputation  the  ad- 
mirable missionary,  has  also  sent  to  compliment  him,  and  has 
offered  him  a  place  in  his  country,  Yojjerat,  with  permission  to 
build  a  church  and  to  celebrate  the  rites  of  his  religion.  Thus, 
whichever  prince  may  triumph  in  this*  struggle,  the  Catholic 
mission  will  be  established  in  Abyssinia.  This  happy  result  we 
owe  to  the  edifying  conduct  of  our  missionaries,  but  above  all 
to  the  inexhaustible  goodness,  the  zeal  and  ability,  of  the  Abbe 
Jacobis." 

Let  us  add,  that  when  Dr.  Beke  visited  Abyssinia  a  little 
later,  he  says,  though  a  Protestant,  "  the  Italian  priests  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  mission,  the  Abbate  de'  Jacobis  and  his  col- 
leagues, received  me  more  like  a  brother  than  a  stranger  ;"* 
and  Mr.  Mansfield  Parkyns  relates,  with  the  candor  of  a  liberal 
and  educated  Englishman,  that  "  it  was  well  known  that  the 
esteem  and  influence  which  his  truly  Christian  conduct  and 
well-regulated  charity  had  earned  for  him  among  the  people 
were  sore  subjects  of  jealousy  and  causes  of  dislike  in  the 
hearts  of  the  (Abyssinian)  priests. "f 

And  now  let  us  leave  Father  Jacobis,  in  his  turn,  pass  over 
an  interval  of  eight  years,  and  in  1850  we  come  to  the  recital 
of  fresh  events,  communicated  by  Father  Leon  des  Avranches 
in  these  terms.  He  writes  from  Massouah,  on  the  Abyssinian 
coast,  on  the  12th  of  March  in  that  year,  after  "  three  years  of 
persecution." 

*  Statement  of  Fatts  relative  to  the  British  Mission  to  Shoa,  p.  17  (1846). 
f  Life  in  Abyssinia,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxxi.,  p.  89. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  579 

"The  ancient  Abyssinian  empire,  no  longer  in  existence 
since  the  invasion  of  the  Gallas,  is  at  present  divided  into  three 
kingdoms — Tigre  Amhara,  where  Ubie  rules ;  Shoa,  mainly 
consisting  of  the  Gallas  tribes ;  and  the  kingdom  of  Gojam.1' 
It  was  to  Shoa  that  the  English  government  sent  a  mission  a 
few  years  ago,  the  failure  of  which  shall  be  noticed  presently, 
while  of  its  inhabitants  Dr.  Beke  reports,  in  184T,  that  they 
display  "  the  lowest  form  in  which  the  Christian  religion  proba- 
bly exists  on  the  face  of  the  globe."*  Yet  it  is  of  such  "  Chris- 
tians" that  Ludolf  and  other  Protestant  writers  speak  with  sym- 
pathy and  admiration,  apparently  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
they  reject  the  Catholic  faith,  and  treat  Catholic  missionaries 
after  the  manner  recited  in  the  following  narrative. 

"  Bishop  Massaia,  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  the  Gallas  nation," 
says  Father  Leon,  "  has  just  returned  to  this  town,  on  the 
shores  of  the  Red  Sea.  After  spending  ten  months  in  visiting 
the  various  Christian  tribes  dispersed  through  the  kingdoms  of 
Shoa  and  Gojam,  he  found  himself  compelled  to  quit  his  mis- 
sion, on  account  of  the  persecution  raised  by  the  schismatical 
bishop  of  Abyssinia.  Although  the  Christians  of  Abyssinia 
profess  the  error  of  Dioscorus,  which  was  condemned  in  the 
Council  of  Chalcedon,  a  great  number  of  them  live  in  total 
ignorance  of  the  matter,  and  suppose  that  their  bishop,  the 
Abouna  sent  to  them  by  the  schismatical  patriarch  of  Cairo,  is 
in  communion  with  the  Pope.  According  to  the  laws  of  the 
country,  there  can  be  only  one  bishop  in  Abyssinia ;  the  usurp- 
er of  the  title  is  subject  to  the  penalty  of  death.  This  furnished 
the  motive  for  the  persecution  raised  against  Bishop  Massaia. 
The  actual  Abouna,  before  he  became  a  bishop,  was  a  poor 
youth,  whose  only  property  was  an  ass,  which  he  let  out  to 
travellers.  After  studying  two  years  at  Cairo,  he  was  deemed 
sufficiently  instructed  to  perform  episcopal  functions ;  he  was 
ordained  and  dispatched  to  Abyssinia,  together  with  some 
Anglican  ministers,  who  were  subsequently  expelled  by  the 
people." 

By  this  singular  prelate,  Bishop  Massaia  was  "  excommuni- 
cated," and  condemned  to  death  ;  "  the  sum  of  one  hundred 
talaris  being  also  promised  to  any  one  who  would  bring  him  the 
head  of  a  Catholic  missionary."f  But  the  project  was  thwarted 
by  the  precautions  of  Father  Jacobis,  and  "  this  outburst  only 
served  to  extend  ther  knowledge  of  the  Catholic  creed.  The 
name  of  the  Eight  Reverend  Dr.  Massaia  was  thenceforth  on 
every  tongue ;  all  parties  spoke  of  the  new  Abouna  sent  by  the 

*  Christianity  among  the  Gallas,  by  C.  J.  Beke,  Ph.D.  (1847.) 
|  Annals,  vol.  xii.,  p.  830. 


580  CHAPTER  VII. 

Pontiff  of  Rome."  Preserved  by  the  chief  of  a  Catholic  tribe 
from  assassination,  the  bishop  finally  escaped  to  Aden  ;  the 
Christians  declaring  that  if  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  Abouna, 
as  he  proposed  to  do,  in  order  to  save  his  flock  from  vexation, 
they  would  all  die  with  him. 

During  his  temporary  exile,  a  touching  scene  was  enacted 
on  the  island  of  Dhalac,  near  Massouah,  where  he  had  found 
refuge,  by  the  connivance  of  the  Ottoman  governor,  together 
with  Father  Jacobis.  For  more  than  a  year  the  latter  had  been 
in  possession  of  bulls  from  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  appointing 
him  to  the  dignity  of  the  episcopate,  which  his  humility  had 
resolutely  declined  to  accept.  Even  the  remonstrances  of 
Bishop  Massaia  were  fruitless,  till  at  length  he  was  obliged  to 
u  command  him,  by  virtue  of  the  holy  obedience  which  he  owed 
to  the  Church,  to  receive  the  episcopal  consecration,"  and  the 
humble  missionary  became  Bishop  of  Nilopolis  and  Vicar  Apos- 
tolic of  Abyssinia.  Twenty-live  native  priests  also  received 
ordination  from  Dr.  Massaia,  and  "  after  a  fraternal  embrace, 
the  two  outlawed  bishops  separated,"  the  one  seeking  a  refuge 
in  the  mountains  of  Altiena,  the  other  remaining  a  few  days  to 
converse  alone  with  God  on  the  rock  of  Dhalac. 

And  now  a  new  incident  revived  the  hopes  of  the  suffering 
Catholics.  Teclafa,  an  Abyssinian  Abbot,  the  Superior  of  more 
than  one  thousand  monks,  appeared  before  Bishop  Massaia,  to 
make  in  his  hands  his  abjuration  of  heresy.  u  After  this 
astonishing  profession  of  faith,  he  withdrew,  and  proceeded  to 
proclaim  at  the  court  of  the  kings  of  Abyssinia,  and  in  the  very 
heat  of  persecution,  that  he  had  become  a  Catholic  priest.  Such 
a  courageous  declaration,"  adds  Father  Leon,  "  from  the  lips  of 
a  neophyte,  made  our  enemies  crest-fallen,  and  restored  courage 
to  our  Christians.  None  ventured  to  lay  a  hand  on  Teclafa, 
from  dread  of  a  popular  insurrection.  On  his  return  to  his 
monastery,  all  his  monks  likewise  declared  themselves  Catholics. 
But  his  zeal  did  not  confine  itself  within  these  bounds.  Like 
another  St.  Paul  he  now  devoted  himself  to  the  conversion  of 
his  brethren,  and  already  three  Christian  congregations  have 
been  associated  by  his  exertions  to  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ." 

The  scattered  missionaries  had  now  all  reached  once  more 
the  frontiers  of  the  Gallas  tribes,  and  their  bishop  could  not 
restrain  the  desire  to  be  again  in  the  midst  of  his  brethren. 
Leaving  Massouah  in  disguise,  Dr.  Massaia  again  entered  Abys- 
sinia, where  a  price  was  set  upon  his  head.  Having  shaved  his 
long  beard,  and  put  on  a  Turkish  dress,  he  joined  a  caravan 
proceeding  to  Gondar,  in  the  character  of  a  poor  trader.  In 
thirteen  days  he  reached  the  camp  of  Ubie,  who  sent  him  on 
his  way,  "' accompanied  by  a  soldier,  with  orders  that  the  same 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  581 

honors  which  were  shown  to  the  king  should  he  paid  to  the 
bishop."  He  reached  Gondar,  but  only  to  be  once  more  ban- 
ished by  the  cruelties  and  exactions  of  his  enemies ;  then 
ascending  the  Blue  Nile  to  its  source,  for  nothing  could  daunt 
his  courage  nor  exhaust  his  patience,  he  sought  the  presence  of 
Has  Ali,  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  Abyssinian  princes, 
having  at  that  time  one  hundred  thousand  men  under  arms. 
The  Has  was  baptized,  but  in  heart  a  Mussulman,  and  little  ad- 
vantage resulted  from  his  interview  with  one  who  resented  in 
private  the  homage  which  he  was  forced  to  pay  to  Christianity 
before  his  followers.  As  he  came  out  of  the  royal  tent,  he  was 
accosted  by  Mr.  Bell,  an  English  traveller  settled  in  Abyssinia, 
and  a  captain  in  the  army  of  Ras.  "  He  had  a  tent  prepared 
for  the  bishop  and  his  companions,  and  though  he  was  a  Prot- 
estant, always  showed  himself  their  friend  and  protector." 

It  would,  however,  be  an  error  to  suppose  that  the  obstacles 
to  the  conversion  of  this  country  proceed  mainly  from  the 
Abyssinian  heretics,  or  their  miserable  Abouna.  "  Islamism," 
says  Dr.  Massaia,  "watches  the  whole  coast  of  this  vast  conti- 
nent, and  an  immense  belt  of  fanatical  populations,  constantly 
excited  by  emissaries  from  Mecca,  obstruct  all  transit  for  Chris- 
tians towards  the  interior.  Their  means  of  action  are  unlimited, 
their  proselytism  ardent,  their  progress  unfortunately  rapid. 
Already  two-thirds  at  least  of  the  Gallas  nation  are  Mussul- 
mans. In  Christian  Abyssinia  they  form  a  third  of  the  popu- 
lation. In  the  capitals  of  Gondar,  Tigre,  and  Shoa,  they  are 
in  the  ascendant,  in  consequence  of  their  wealth  and  influence. 
....  The  Christians,  who  are  only  heretics  by  birth,  would 
willingly  embrace  our  religion,  if  they  were  not  oppressed  by 
the  Abouna  and  the  Mussulmans." 

In  spite  of  these  formidable  difficulties,  and  of  the  grave  fact 
affirmed  by  Bishop  Massaia,  that  u  Mahometanism  tends  to 
supremacy  within  a  short  period," — for  none  of  the  heretical 
communities  of  the  East  have  lite  enough  to  resist  its  progress — 
the  Catholic  missionaries  still  pursue  their  arduous  toils,  always 
in  peril,  yet  never  dismayed,  and  leaving  the  result  to  Him 
whose  servants  they  are.  Already,  six  years  ago,  they  had  re- 
ceived the  abjuration  of  more  than  ten  thousand  Abyssinians. 
including  their  most  eminent  ecclesiastics ;  and  within  the  last 
two  years  their  influence  has  powerfully  increased,  even  their 
most  inveterate  enemies  being  subdued  by  their  unalterable 
patience  and  charity.  In  May,  1860,  one  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent and  influential  of  the  Abyssinian  princes  "was  restored  to 
Catholic  unity,  together  with  all  his  people."*  A  little  earlier, 

*  Annals,  No.  126,  p.  125. 


582  CHAPTER  VII. 

Ne"gouci6,  another  of  the  native  potentates,  sent  a  solemn  em- 
bassy to  the  Pope,  announcing  the  free  exercise  of  the  Catholic 
religion  throughout  his  dominions,  and  expressing  his  own  de- 
sire to  be  received  into  the  Church.* 

It  is  evident  that  but  for  the  potent  influence  of  Islamism, 
and  its  ceaseless  intrigues,  they  would  soon  convert  all  Abys- 
sinia. The  Abbot  of  Guendguendie,  one  of  the  most  important 
personages  in  the  country,  lately  exclaimed  aloud  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Ubie,  to  some  of  the  chief  opponents  of  the  missiona- 
ries :  "  If  you  would  combat  the  Catholics  with  success,  you 
must  begin  by  leading  as  Christian  lives  as  they  do."  Bishop 
Jacobis,  who  relates  this  anecdote,  adds  :  "Thanks  to  our  Divine 
Saviour,  the  exemplary  conduct  of  the  Abyssinian  Catholics 
wonderfully  justifies  this  reasoning.  As  for  the  Abbot,  he  does 
not  confine  himself  to  barren  speeches ;  impatient  to  confirm 
them  by  his  actions,  he  solicits  without  intermission  the  favor 
of  being  admitted  into  the  number  of  the  faithful.  We  should 
already  have  yielded  to  the  eagerness  of  his  desires,  if  the  con- 
version of  a  personage  placed  so  high  in  general  esteem  on 
account  of  his  perpetual  fasting,  did  not  require  sundry  pre- 
cautions, suggested  by  the  interests  of  religion  itself.  This  is, 
however,  a  sure  conquest,  although  adjourned,  aiid  our  tem- 
porizing only  serves  to  mature  it  by  fasting  and  prayer."f 

And  now,  since  we  have  sufficiently  manifested  the  character 
of  Catholic  influence  in  Abyssinia,  and  of  the  generous  apostles 
by  whose  toil  it  is  maintained,  we  may  quit  a  subject  which  our 
limits  do  not  permit  us  to  exhaust.  From  Abyssinia,  where  the 
creed  of  St.  Athanasius  is  evidently  destined  to  triumph  over 
the  errors  of  Eutyches  and  Dioscorus,  the  faith  is  spreading 
even  among  the  barbarous  Gallas  tribes.  u  I  enjoy  perfect 
liberty  in  the  exercise  of  my  ministry,"  says  Bishop  Massaia, 
now  Vicar  Apostolic  of  the  Gallas,  at  the  close  of  1853.  UA 
few  years  of  patient  perseverance  will  enable  me,  I  feel  con- 
vinced, to  enter  into  communication  with  Sennaar."  Seven 
years  later,  a  Protestant  missionary  will  tell  us  that  the  brave 
bishop  had  penetrated  far  beyond  even  that  remote  place.  "  I 
have  with  me  here  (Sandabo)  two  pupils,  one  an  Abyssinian, 
the  other  a  Galla ;  the  latter  exceedingly  fervent,  and  whom,  in 
the  course  of  another  year,  I  shall  be  able  to  ordain  priest. 
Nothing  but  death  shall  separate  me  from  my  neophytes;  and 
if  my  corpse  is  not  followed  to  the  grave  by  a  numerous  proces- 
sion of  Christians,  the  land  at  all  events  is  here  cheap  enough 
to  afford  sepulture  to  my  unworthy  remains.  Let  me  only 

*  IS  Abolition  de  VEsclavage,  par  Augustin  Cochin,  tome  ii.,  p.  522. 
f  Vol.  x.,  p.  307. 


MISSIONS  IN"  AFRICA.  583 

succeed,  before  that  hour  arrives,  in  planting  the  cross,  and  in 
kindling  the  evangelical  fire  which  already  begins  to  burn  in 
the  hearts  of  a  few  individuals,  and  the  whole  Gallas  nation 
will  be  saved."* 

Six  years  later,  the  apostolic  labors  of  this  courageous  prelate 
iiad  already  produced  so  much  fruit  in  this  savage  soil — which 
only  zeal  like  his  would  have  dared  to  cultivate,  far  from  all 
human  succor,  and  deprived  of  all  human  means, — that  he 
found  it  necessary  to  consecrate  a  coadjutor,  and  the  native 
clergy  consisted  of  five  priests,  a  deacon,  and  seven  religious.  * 

It  is  of  the  labors  of  such  a  man  as  this,  and  of  his  venerable 
colleagues, — who,  as  Mr.  Hamilton  observes  with  admiration, 
were  not  rarely  "  victims  to  the  excessive  austerity  of  their 
lives,"  and  who  won  the  reluctant  veneration  of  the  Moslem, 
the  Nubian,  and  the  Galla, — that  a  Protestant  minister,  Dr. 
Wilson,  could  deliberately  write  as  follows:  "The  apparent 
success  of  the  agents  of  Rome  at  present  in  Abyssinia  is  to  be 
attributed  principally  to  bribery  and  corruption.  Let  them 
beware  of  all  unrighteousness  and  hypocrisy,  for  the  day  of 
reckoning  may  come  sooner  than  they  expect."f  lias  Dr. 
Wilson  forgotten  that  it  will  come  for  himself  also  ? 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  from  the  country  of  the  Gallas 
to  Abyssinia,  before  we  pass  to  other  regions,  in  order  to  notice, 
according  to  our  custom,  the  attempts  of  Protestant  mission- 
aries in  the  latter  kingdom. 

The  Abyssinian  Christians,  fallen  as  they  are,  still  profess  a 
sincere  belief  in  the  Seven  Sacraments ;  and  as  M.  Rochet 
d'Hericourt — whose  salutary  influence  with  the  king  of  Shoa 
Mr.  Johnson  describes  and  laments — lately  observed,  display  so 
much  reverence  for  the  Mother  of  God  that  they  celebrate 
thirty-three  annual  festivals  in  her  honor.:):  Such  devotions, 
always  rewarded  by  her  Divine  Son,  will  no  doubt  hasten  their 
reconciliation  with  the  Church,  in  spite  of  the  defects  which 
accompany  them.  Meanwhile  they  have  won  for  the  Abyssin- 
ians  the  reproachful  sympathy  of  Protestants,  who  reprove  their 
agreement  with  Catholic  doctrine  as  much  as  they  laud  their 
opposition  to  Catholic  unity.  In  order  to  check  the  one  and 
stimulate  the  other,  Mr/Gobat,  the  gentleman  who  now  repre- 
sents, without  believing,  the  Anglican  religion  at  Jerusalem, — 
in  spite  of  the  ineffectual  protests  of  men  who  are  accustomed 
to  "  protest"  without  gaining,  or  expecting  to  gain,  any  thing 
by  it — paid  a  visit  to  Abyssinia.  He  had  been  preceded  by 


*  Vol.  xv.,  p.  178. 

f  Lands  of  the  Bible,  vol.  ii.,  p.  593. 

J  Second  Voyage  dam  le  Pays  des  Adds  et  le  Eoyaume  de  Ckoa,  p.  227. 


584  CHAPTER  VII. 

others,  one  of  whom,  apparently  Mr.  Isenberg,  was  happy 
enough,  before  he  was  expelled,  to  dissuade  some  of  the  natives 
from  embracing  Mahometanism.  Let  us  hope  that  he  may  re- 
ceive an  abundant  reward  for  this  good  action. 

Mr.  Gobat  seems  to  have  been  less  successful.  His  manner 
of  life,  he  tells  us,  and  especially  his  invincible  repugnance  to 
bodily  mortifications  in  general,  and  to  fasting  in  particular, 
did  not  attract  the  esteem  of  the  Abyssinian  Christians.  "  The 
greater  part  of  the  monks/'  he  complains,  "  have  become  my 
enemies,  and  call  me  '  Mussulman,'  because  I  condemn  the 
adoration  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  have  no  confidence  in  her 
intercession."*  And  so  he  found  it  expedient  to  depart,  the 
people  obstinately  refusing  to  believe  that  a  man  could  be  any 
thing  better  than  a  Turk,  who  never  fasted,  had  "no  confi- 
dence1' in  the  all-powerful  Mother  of  Jesus,  and  publicly 
asserted  that  she  "  was  a  sinner." 

As  such  a  statement  may  appear  impossible,  even  in  the 
mouth  of  one  who  seems  to  be,  at  the  same  moment,  a  German 
Lutheran,  an  agent  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  and  an 
Anglican  bishop,  it  may  be  well  to  add,  that  Mr.  Gobat  re- 
cords in  his  journal,  for  the  advantage  of  English  readers,  the 
very  arguments  which  he  proposed  without  success  to  the 
Abyssinians.  The  Immaculate  Virgin  was  evidently  a  sinner, 
he  says,  for  two  reasons ;  first,  because  she  called  our  Blessed 
Lord  her  Saviour ;  and  secondly,  because  she  allowed  Him  to 
wander  from  her  on  the  journey  from  Jerusalem  !  A  French 
writer  observes  that  Mr.  Gobat  might  have  proved,  by  the 
same  reasoning,  that  our  Lord  was  also  a  sinner,  because  He 
submitted  to  be  baptized,  and  because  He  voluntarily  left  the 
company  of  our  Lady  and  St.  Joseph.f 

•  But  if  the  Abyssinians  refused  to  believe  that  Mr.  Gobat  was 
a  Christian,  he  was  equally  surprised  that  they  could  resist  the 
attractions  of  his  lenient  religious  code,  and  reject  the  cheerful 
form  of  Christianity  which  he  offered  them.  "  If  the  priests 
choose  to  marry,"  he  remarks,  severely  reproving  their  indiffer- 
ence to  that  source  of  enjoyment,  "  they  have  nothing  to  fear, 
except  a  little  contempt,  together  with  the  prohibition  of  their 
officiating  as  priests.";):  To  this  hour,  Mr.  Gobat  can  neither 
understand  why  these  Ethiopians  took  him  for  a  Turk,  nor  why 
they  rejected  his  cordial  invitation  to  "defile  themselves  with 
women  ;"§  because,  as  he  observes,  all  they  had  to  apprehend 
was  "  a  little  contempt,"  and  degradation  from  the  priesthood. 

*  Journal  of  a  Three  Tears'  Residence  in  Abyssinia,  ch.  iv.,  p.  323. 
f  Les  Lieux  Saints,  par  Mgr.  Mislin,  tome  iii.,  ch.  xxviii. 
i  Ch.  v.,  p.  349. 
|  Apoc.  xiv.  4. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  585 

By  snch  inadequate  motives  they  were  restrained  from  em- 
bracing the  religion  of  Mr.  Gobat. 

If  Mr.  Gobat  had  selected  Kurdistan,  instead  of  Abyssinia  or 
Jerusalem,  as  the  scene  of  his  labors,  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  in  the  former  country  he  would  have  found  the  disciples 
whom  he  failed  to  attract  by  the  rivers  of  Ethiopia  or  under  the 
shadows  of  Mount  Zion.  That  Kurdistan  would  have  received 
him,  if  not  with  enthusiasm,  at  least  with  sympathy,  we  may 
infer  from  the  remark  of  a.  Kurd  to  an  English  traveller,  to 
whom  he  confidentially  observed,  that  the  English  and  Kurdish 
religions  were  evidently  identical,  "for we  eat  hog's  flesh,  drink 
wine,  keep  no  fasts,  and  say  no  prayers."* 

Mr.  Gobat  asserts,  however,  that  he  did  make  at  least  one 
convert  in  Abyssinia,  and  we  are  able  to  corroborate  the  state- 
ment by  the  testimony  of  a  fellow-missionary.  "Girgis,  an 
Abyssinian,"  says  Dr.  Joseph  Wolff,  "  was  converted  by  Gobat." 
The  fact,  then,  is  authentic;  but  Dr.  Wolff  adds  immediately, 
as  if  to  check  undue  elation,  that  this  solitary  convert  first  sold 
two  children  into  slavery  who  had  been  intrusted  to  his  care, 
"  and  afterwards  turned  Muhammedan  at  Cairo."f 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  levity  which  accepts  and  propagates 
such  fictions,  that  in  a  biography  of  Mr.  Gobat,  published  by 
what  is  called  "the  Evangelical  Alliance,"  this  very  Girgis  is 
presented  to  the  admiration  of  English  Protestants  as  "a  noble 
Abyssinian,"  and  a  devout  pupil  of  Kugler  and  Gobat,  "whose 
instructions,  combined  with  the  diligent  study  of  the  sacred 
Scriptures,  were  blessed  greatly  to  promote  his  advancement 
in  Divine  things  !"J 

When  Mr.  Gobat  retired  from  Abyssinia  to  continue  else- 
where his  unfinished  career,  he  was  succeeded  by  Dr.  Lewis 
Krapf,  who  appears  to  have  resembled  the  Anglican  Bishop  of 
Jerusalem,  both  in  his  views  of  Christianity  and  in  the  success 
with  which  he  taught  them.  Mr.  Gobat,  indeed,  was  content 
to  recommend  matrimony  to  the  Abyssinian  clergy  for  its  own 
sake;  Dr.  Krapf  from  higher  motives.  "My  experiences 
convinced  me,"  says  the  latter  gentleman,  "that  an  unmarried 
missionary  could  not  eventually  prosper."  It  might  perhaps  be 
suggested  that  this  opinion  betrays  an  imperfect  acquaintance 
with  the  history  of  Christianity ;  nor  does  Dr.  Krapf  s  own 
career  encourage  the  belief  that  marriage  is  an  infallible  guar- 
anty of  missionary  success.  Everywhere  he  failed.  "1  am 
specially  grieved,"  he  says,  "by  the  indifference  of  the  Wanika," 


*  Nineveh  and  Persepolis,  by  W.  S.  Vaux,  M.A.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  23. 

f  Wolff's  Journal,  p.  331. 

j  Evangelical  Christendom,  vol.  i.,  p.  77. 


586  CHAPTER   VII. 

who  had  largely  shared  in  his  thirty  "  chests  full  of  Bibles/' 
"  My  dear  fellow-laborer  Rebmann  had  at  one  time  collected  a 
flock  of  children  at  Ennni,  and  begun  to  teach  them  ;  but  they 
soon  dispersed."  In  the  midst  of  these  vexations,  "  it  was  very 
consolatory,"  he  observes,  "  to  remember  the  words, '  Fear  not, 
Abram,  I  am  thy  shield,  and  thy  exceeding  great  reward.'  ' 
The  only  reward,  however,  which  he  actually  records  is  his 
appointment  to  a  comfortable  position  in  Germany,  for  which 
he  abandoned  the  insensible  Wanika. 

Rebmann  himself,  who  also  departed,  reports  in  1861,  that 
"Macedonian  voices  called  me  back,"  and  that  unexpected 
successes  constrained  him  "  to  raise  an  Ebenezer,  both  of  the 
Providence  and  Grace  of  God."  It  appears  that  this  means,  in 
ordinary  language,  that  he  persuaded  four  savages  to  receive 
baptism,  though  he  confesses  that  he  had  great  difficulty  in 
persuading  himself  to  give  it  to  them.  "  On  the  morning  of 
their  baptism  I  had  still  some  struggle  in  my  mind  whether  I 
should  receive  them  as  members  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  they 
appeared  to  me  so  weak  and  ignorant,  so  deficient  in  conviction 
of  sin,  and  appreciation  of  Christ  as  their  only  Saviour."  But 
the  society  at  home  wanted  some  new  facts  about  East  Africa, 
which  had  become  an  offence  to  their  subscribers,  and  it  was 
necessary  to  baptize  somebody.  A  pretext  was  easily  found. 
"I  went  out  into  the  open  air,"  continues  Mr.  Rebmann,  "and 
looked  up  to  Heaven  ;  a  rain  was  just  then  preparing  from  the 
east  to  descend  on  the  thirsty  ground  ;  the  freeness  of  the 
grace  of  God  was  brought  forcibly  to  my  mind."  And  so  he 
baptized  them  all,  and  the  Church  Missionary  Society  exults  in 
the  fact.* 

Dr.  Krapf  s  view  of  the  efficacy  of  marriage  in  promoting  mis- 
sionary work  appears  to  have  been  modified  by  later  observa- 
tion. "The  wish  to  settle  down  as  comfortably  as  possible," 
he  remarks,  "  and  to  marry,  entangles  a  missionary  in  many 
external  engagements  which  may  lead  him  away  from  his 
Master  and  his  duty.  This  wish  naturally  prompts  him  to 
trouble  himself  about  irrelevant  and  subordinate  matters,  such 
for  instance  as  house-building,  all  sorts  of  colonizing  schemes, 
&c.,  &c.5'  Dr.  Krapf  appears,  therefore,  to  have  been  at  least 
partially  converted  to  St.  Paul's  doctrine  on  the  same  subject. 

Dr.  Krapf  records  one  convert,  like  Mr.  Gobat ;  but  Dr.  Krapf 
is  an  honest  man,  though  an  unsuccessful  missionary,  and  tells 
us  his  real  character.  Wolda  Gabriel,  Dr.  Krapf  s  hired  ser- 
vant, was  a  native  of  Shoa,  and  having  been  sent  to  Jerusalem, 
"  became  acquainted  with  the  Bible  and  the  Protestant  faith." 

*  Report  for  1862,  p.  56. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  587 

He  could  even,  says  his  master,  u  defend  pure  Christianity 
against  Mohammedans  and  bigoted  Christians  of  the  Greek, 
Romish,  and  Abyssinian  churches."  But  this  was  the  sum  of 
his  merits.  He  had  reached  that  point  beyond  which  no  dis- 
ciple of  Protestant  missionaries  ever  advances,  and  "  in  spite 
of  all  his  intellectual  acquirements,  his  heart  was  still  un- 
renewed  and  unregenerate." 

On  the  other  hand,  Dr.  Krapf,  like  Dr.  Smith  in  China,  and 
Mr.  Tomlin  in  India,  was  able  to  detect  that  the  labors  of 
Catholic  missionaries,  in  spite  of  their  being  unmarried,  were 
more  fruitful  than  his  own.  We  even  learn  something  from 
him  about  Bishops  Massaia  and  Jacobis,  and  the  colleagues 
who  shared  their  toils.  "The  Abuna  said  that  the  Gallas 
would  not  allow  white  people  to  visit  Kaffa,  especially  if  they 
were  provided  with  lire-arms.  In  spite  of  this,  some  Romish 
missionaries  seem  to  have  succeeded  in  reaching  Kaffa,  where 
they  are  said  to  have  been  very  well  received  by  the  king  of 
the  country."  "  Some  time  ago,"  he  adds,  "  an  Italian  priest 
is  said  to  have  penetrated  to  Gezan,  which  is  apparently  twelve 
days  south  of  Sennaar,  and  thence  to  have  proceeded  to  Fadasi, 
the  chief  place  of  the  tribe  of  Bene-Shongol.  He  seems  to 
have  purposed  to  reach  Enarea  and  Kaffa,  where  are  some 
Romish  missionaries,  who  went  to  Kaffa  from  Abyssinia." 
The  missionary  executed  his  bold  project,  and  at  Fadasi, 
"  gained  the  favor  of  the  prince  by  curing  his  sick  son." 

But  Dr.  Krapf  has  more  to  tell  us.  Unable,  like  his  'co- 
religionists in  other  lands,  to  relate  any  victories  of  his  own,  he 
is  content  to  celebrate  those  of  Catholics.  "  The  Romanists 
made  converts  in  Halai,  Dixan,  Kaich,  Kur,  and  in  other 
places,  on  the  frontiers  of  Tigre,  as  many  priests  in  the  interior 
played  into  their  hands."  Towards  himself,  if  we  interpret 
his  silence  rightly,  the  same  priests  were  less  favorably  dis- 
posed ;  yet  their  Abuna  was  willing  to  give  him  free  scope, 
and  he  relates,  with  great  simplicity,  how  bluntly  that  intelli- 
gent functionary  intimated  his  personal  conviction  that  he  had 
nothing  whatever  to  fear  from  Protestant  missionaries.  "  The 
Protestant  missionaries,"  he  told  Dr.  Krapf, — who  repeats  the 
words  without  the  slightest  suspicion  of  their  true  meaning, — 
"do  not  injure  the  Abyssinian  Church,  for  they  circulate  the 
Bible,  and  that  only  ;"  a  practice  which  the  Abuna  had  good 
reason  to  know  would  lead  to  very  harmless  results,  "  such  as 
the  wrapping  up  of  snuff,"  as  Mr.  Parkyns  has  told  us,  "  and 
such  like  undignified  purposes."  The  "  eight  thousand  Bibles" 
which  Dr.  Krapf  himself  distributed  had  made  no  other  con- 
quest than  the  *'  unrenewed  and  unregenerate"  Wolda  Gabriel. 

But  *'  the  Romanists,"  the  Abuna  assured  Dr.  Krapf,  wer 


588  CHAPTER  VII. 

insupportable,  "  and  interfered  with  my  government  of  the 
Church."  Moreover,  they  were  making  converts  in  all  direc- 
tions, especially  among  the  higher  ecclesiastics,  and  were  in 
every  way  offensive.  For  this  reason,  when  Kasai  attacked 
Ubie  in  1853,  the  A  buna  promised  his  co-operation,  if  the 
former  would  banish  the  Catholic  missionaries  from  Gondar; 
which  that  prince  did,  to  the  great  but  premature  exultation  of 
Dr.  Krapf.  The  Catholic  religion  is  accustomed  to  outlive 
more  formidable  adversaries  than  Kasai,  as  Dr.  Krapf  quick- 
ly discovered.  And  so,  he  observes,  "Ubie  worked  so  stren- 
uously in  the  interest  of  Rome,"  having  learned  to  venerate 
such  representatives  of  the  Holy  See  as  Massaia  and  Jacobis, 
"that  the  Abuna  could  not  prevail  upon  the  prince  even  to 
cherish  the  Abyssinian  Church  to  which  he  belonged.  It  was 
therefore  evident  that  the  Protestant  mission  must  entirely 
abandon  Abyssinia,  and  seek  elsewhere  for  a  sphere  of  labor; 
and  such  was  the  result."  Whereupon,  says  Dr.  Krapf,  "  I  bid 
farewell  to  my  household,  after  prayer  and  scriptural  medi- 
tation."* And  so  ended  the  Protestant  mission  in  Abyssinia. 

Mr.  Gobat  and  Dr.  Krapf,  and  their  immediate  associates, 
were  not,  however,  the  only  emissaries  of  Protestantism  who 
were  ejected  from  Abyssinia.  The  Moravians  also,  we  learn 
from  Mr.  Mansfield  Parkyns,  maintained  a  costly  mission  in 
that  land,  and  this  was  the  result  of  their  operations.  "  Having 
expended  a  large  sum  in  books  and  property  distributed  and 
lost,  they  left  not  one  single  convert,  nor  even  one  individual 
who  would  say  more  of  them  than  that  they  were  good-natured, 
open-handed  people,  but  that  it  was  a  pity  they  were  such  des- 
perate heretics;  even  those  whose  gratitude  for  what  they  might 
nave  gained  in  lucre  induced  them  to  pay  the  good  brethren 
such  negative  compliments,  were  few  indeed  compared  to  those 
who  openly  spoke  of  them  as  infidels  and  worse  than  Turks." 

This  verdict,  however  severe,  was  not  altogether  arbitrary  and 
unprovoked.  Not  only  did  the  Moravians  resemble  Mr.  Gobat 
in  their  contempt  for  the  saints,  and  dislike  of  bod i\y  mortifica- 
tion,— peculiarities  which  were  far  from  recommending  them  to 
the  sympathy  of  the  Abyssinians  ;  they  even  adopted,  as  Mr. 
Parkyns  relates,  the  decisive  plan  of  "  killing  meat  in  the  mis- 
sion-house during  one  of  their  most  solemn  fasts,  to  tempt  the 
poor  and  hungry  to  sin  against  their  own  consciences"  But  the 
famished  Abyssinian  was  only  revolted  by  this  characteristic 
proceeding,  which  excited  such  universal  loathing  and  indigna- 
tion, that  "  the  missionaries  were  declared  to  be  no  Christians," 

*  Travels  in  Eastern  Africa,  ch.  vii.,  p.  87  ;  ch.  viii.,  p.  110  ;  ch.  xi.,  pp.  185, 
437,  465. 


MISSIONS    IN    AFRICA.  589 

and  when  they  finally  departed,  "  they  left  not  a  single  friend 
behind."* 

Such,  in  a  few  words,  has  been  the  issue  of  all  the  Protestant 
missions  in  Abyssiriip.  After  years  of  idle  boasts  and  baffled 
intrigue,  during  which  Bibles  were  scattered  in  thousands,  to 
be  defiled  as  waste-paper  or  trodden  under  foot,  and  the  worst 
maxims  of  an  immoral  creed  were  promulgated,  but  only  to 
excite  the  disgust  even  of  barbarians,  "the  East  Africa  mission 
is  still  represented  by  a  solitary  missionary,  at  a  single  station  !"f 
One  after  another,  the  agents  of  the  society  which  utters  this 
lament  have  fled,  or  been  ejected  amid  the  scorn  of  the  people. 
They  have  failed  to  gain  a  single  disciple,  and  have  been  pur- 
sued to  the  shores  which  they  were  about  to  quit  with  a  chorus 
of  maledictions.  Without,  however,  employing  the  vehement 
phraseology  of  the  Christians  of  Shoa  and  Tigre,  we  may  con- 
tent ourselves  with  observing,  that  if  Protestant  missionaries, 
of  all  sects  and  ranks,  venture  upon  actions  which  shock  the 
instincts,  and  provoke  the  disgust  and  astonishment,  of  the  least 
spiritual  races  of  the  human  family;  if  even  the  best  of  them 
lead  everywhere,  and  with  a  kind  of  ostentation,  a  life  which, 
however  (decent  and  orderly,  is  as  manifestly  earthly  and  un- 
supernatural  as  that  of  their  own  domestics ;  while  their 
religion  consists  only  in  periodical  fits  of  emotion,  and  in  an 
incessant  talk  about  mysteries  which  they  never  realize,  and 
doctrines  which  they  never  interpret,  and  graces  which  they 
never  display  ;  they  have  no  reason  to  be  surprised  at  the 
judgment  which  has  long  ago  been  passed  upon  them,  with  a 
terrible  unanimity  of  aversion,  by  the  whole  heathen  world. 

It  was  a  rule  of  the  great  Apostle  to  be  "  all  things  to  all 
men,"  and  even  to  adapt  his  exposition  of  Divine  truth,  so 
far  as  the  integrity  of  the  faith  permitted,  to  the  ideas  and 
perceptions  of  his  hearers.  He  spoke  even  to  the  lascivious 
Greek  and  the  effeminate  Syrian  of  the  vigil  and  the  scourge ; 
but  if  he  had  preached  in  Hindostan  or  Abyssinia,  he  would 
willingly  have  fasted  all  the  year  round.  Protestant  missionaries 
disdain  these  apostolic  arts.  Fathers  of  families,  and  absorbed 
by  secular  cares,  they  hate  fasting,  silence,  and  every  other 
mortification,  and  never'  scruple  to  avow  their  antipathies,  for 
which  they  have  always  a  "scriptural"  justification,  to  all  who 

*  Life  in  Abyssinia,  vol.  L,  ch,  xii.,  p.  148.  It  appears  that  some  "  Hano- 
verian missionaries" — for  in  every  Protestant  land  there  are  what  a  Protestant 
traveller  calls  "  itinerant  livelihood  seekers,"  of  all  sects — endeavored  to  enter 
East  Africa,  but  were  "  prohibited  from  setting  foot  on  the  continent."  They 
never  advanced  beyond  the  island  of  Zanzibar,  where  they  are  probably  en- 
joying their  salaries  at  this  moment. 

\  Church  Missionary  Society's  Report,  1862,  p.  55. 


690  CHAPTER   VII. 

will  listen  to  them.  But  in  doing  so,  they  effectually  alienate 
not  only  Christians,  but  even  pagans  and  Mussulmans. 

"  The  people  bother  my  life  out  about  fasting,"  says  an 
English  traveller  in  Africa.  "  Two  young  Touarick  women 
came  to  me — 

"  4Thou  Christian!  dost  thou  fast?'  (they  having  never  seen 
a  person  before  who  did  not  fast). 

"  'No  ;  the  Christians  don't  fast.' 

"The  girls.— •< -Don't  the  Christians  know  God?'"* 

Major  Cornwallis  Harris,  another  English  Protestant,  was 
not  less  irritated  by  similar  remarks  on  the  part  of  Abyssinians, 
who  used  to  ask  one  another,  with  respect  to  the  members  of 
the  English  mission  whom  that  officer  conducted  to  Shoa, — 
"  What  can  they  be  ?  Are  they  Jews  ?  or  Mahometans,  or 
what  ?"  And  when  some  charitably  suggested  that  they  might 
possibly  be  a  kind  of  degenerate  Christians,  the  bystanders 
would  reply:  "Christians!  Impossible.  They  observe  no  fast."f 

Mr.  Gobat,  Mr.  Richardson,  and  Major  Harris  might  have 
told  them,  if  so  disposed,  that  Christians  of  the  school  of  St. 
Paul  do  fast ;  not  like  Mahometans,  to  avenge  at  night  the 
mortification  of  the  body  by  day ;  nor,  like  heretics,  as  if  fast- 
ing, without  measure  and  without  rule,  were  a  substitute  for 
more  important  virtues ;  but  with  such  a  prudent  and  holy 
fast  as  St.  Paul  enjoined,  "  to  bring  the  body  into  subjection," 
and  chastise  its  disorderly  appetites — a  fast  expressive  of  hu- 
mility and  contrition,  inspired  by  charity,  imposed  by  law, 
and  consecrated  by  obedience.  They  might  have  told  them, 
too,  if  they  had  remembered  it,  that  the  only  two  men  who 
ever  appeared  in  glory  with  the  Redeemer  of  the  world,  were 
also  the  only  two  who  ever  received  power  to  imitate  His 
supernatural  fast  of  forty  days  and  nights. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  English  mission  to  Shoa.  Mr.  John- 
ston, alluding  to  its  utter  failure,  says,  "I  know,  from  personal 
experience,  that  the  merchant  and  the  missionary  must  now 
seek  other  situations  for  carrying  out  their  interesting  arid 
philanthropic  projects  for  the  regeneration  of  Africa."  The 
English  mission,  he  seems  to  think,  which  wras  designed  to 
counteract  that  of  Catholic  France,  ruined  those  projects  finally; 
and  u  the  missionary,"  he  adds,  "  now  grieves  for  influence  that 
is  gone  forever.";): 

The  French  mission,  unlike  the  English,  has  been  supremely 
successful  in  all  its  aims.  Aided  by  the  powerful  influence  oi 
the  bishop  and  his  apostolic  companions,  the  dignity  of  whose 

*  Richardson,  Travels  in  the  Great  Desert  of  SaJiara,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  149. 
The  Highlands  of  Ethiopia,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  184. 
Vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  pp.  70  and  84. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  591 

character  has  conciliated  even  their  enemies,  it  has  already 
importantly  served  the  interests  both  of  religion  and  of  France. 
The  delegate  of  the  Holy  See  is  at  length  enthroned  in  the  cap- 
ital of  Abyssinia,  and  fresh  conquests  reward  his  patient  and 
enlightened  zeal.  Only  the  enemies  of  the  Church,  and  of  her 
work  of  regeneration,  have  reason  to  deplore  this  new  triumph 
of  faith  and  civilization  ;  but  they  do  not  conce.al  their  displeas- 
ure. A  French  Protestant  lady,  whose  deplorable  language 
makes  one  forget  her  sex,  met  in  Mr.  Lieder's  unsuccessful  school 
at  Cairo  an  Abyssinian  youth  who  seems  to  have  made  the  usual 
progress  towards  utter  infidelity  under  his  English  teachers,  but 
who  gave  this  candid  account  of  his  own  native  district.  u  There 
was  an  English  missionary  in  my  country,  but  they  sent  him 
avsay  ;  there  is  now  an  Italian  missionary,  who  has  built  a 
chapel :  they  love  the  French  religion  better  than  the  English."* 
And  an  emissary  of  a  London  society  lamented  a  little  later 
that  the  contest  was  over,  and  that  "  the  endeavors  of  Protest- 
ants to  send  other  agents  into  the  country  have  hitherto  been 
frustrated  by  the  intrigues  of  the  Jesuits."f  The  truth  is,  as 
we  have  seen  by  Protestant  testimony,  that  they  were  driven 
away  by  the  indignation  of  the  people,  who  needed  no  stimulus 
from  a  few  helpless  foreigners  to  rid  themselves  of  teachers 
whose  worldly  lives  and  unchristian  doctrines  led  the  Abyssin- 
ians,  in  spite  of  their  own  imperfections,  to  regard  them  "  as 
infidels,  and  worse  than  Turks." 


WESTERN   AFRICA. 

And  now  let  us  turn  our  faces  westwards,  traverse  the  vast 
regions  which  have  already  proved  fatal  to  so  many  of  the 
apostles  of  human  science,  Ledyard  and  Park,  Burkhardt  and 
Bowditch,  Lang  and  Clapperton,  and,  in  our  own  day,  Barth 
and  Warrington ;J  and,  without  lingering  in  that  great  central 
waste  into  which  the  Catholic  missionary  alone  can  ever  intro- 
duce religion  and  civilization,  let  us  commence  on  the  opposite 
coast  of  Africa  the  investigations  which  we  have  already  at- 
tempted to  pursue  along  its  eastern  frontier. 

The  Pere  Labat,  in  his  account  of  Western  Africa,  endeavors 
to  prove  that  the  Normans  visited  that  coast  in  the  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth  century.§  If  it  were  so,  they  left  no  materials, 
and  were  not  likely  to  leave  any,  for  the  history  which  we  now 

*  Journal  d'un  Voyage  au  Levant,  tome  ii.,  p.  446. 

f  Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  849. 

|  Statement  of  the  Society  for  exploring  Central  Africa,  p.  7. 

§  flouvelle  Relation  de  I'Afrique  Occidentale,  tome  i.,  ch.  ii. 


592  CHAPTER  VII. 

propose  to  trace.  Four  nations  have,  since  that  date,  partly 
From  religious  and  partly  from  commercial  motives,  made  set- 
tlements on  different  points  of  the  Atlantic  coast.  The  Portu- 
guese, who  led  the  way  in  the  fifteenth  century,  now  retain 
only  in  Lower  Guinea,  including  the  kingdoms  of  Congo,  An- 
gola, and  Benguela,  the  authority  which  they  once  "exerted 
through  a  wider  range ;  Senegambia,  and  the  Mandingo  race, 
acknowledge  the  influence  of  France ;  the  Cape  Coast  region 
forms  part  of  the  ample  colonial  conquests  of  Great  Britain  ; 
and  America  seeks,  by  her  merchants  and  her  missionaries,  to 
dispute  at  Cape  Pal  mas  and  a  few  other  points,  by  the  ener- 
getic action  of  the  Maryland  Colonization  Society,  the  religious 
and  mercantile  supremacy  of  Europe.  Let  us  begin  with 
Sierra  Leone  and  the  contiguous  districts,  which,  for  more  than 
half  a  century,  have  been  appropriated  as  their  peculiar  field 
by  the  agents  of  English  commerce  and  religion. 

England  has  not  usually  been  happy  in  the  earlier  represent- 
atives of  her  church  and  polity  in  foreign  lands.  It  is  true  that 
the  Anglican  Church  has,  in  every  instance,  employed  members 
of  other  communities  to  convey  her  doctrines  to  the  heathen  ; 
because  her  own  ministers,  salaried  officials  of  a  civil  corpora- 
tion, invariably  refused  the  task.  As  in  India  and  Ceylon,  in 
Syria  and  the  Levant,  and  in  many  other  places,  so  in  West 
Africa,  she  has  been  represented  chiefly  by  Germans.  Even 
the  Americans,  each  of  whose  multitudinous  sects  has  its  own 
distinctive  missionary  organization,  freely  remark  upon  the 
reluctance  of  the  Church  of  England  clergy  to  act  as  mission- 
aries. "The  Church  Missionary  Society,"  observes  the  Rev. 
Joseph  Tracy,  in  a  work  on  this  subject,  "sent  out  Germans; 
for,  after  several  years  of  effort,  no  English  missionary  could  be 
procured.'7*  This  statement  may  not  be  literally  true;  for  the 
Rev.  William  Moister,  an  Afrfcan  missionary,  informs  us  that 
the  "  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign 
Parts"  sent  a  clergyman  to  Cape  Coast  Castle  as  early  as  1751. 
Possibly,  however,  this  gentleman  was  also  a  German;  but 
whatever  his  nation  may  have  been,  "  very  little  impression," 
we  are  told,  "  seems  to  have  been  made  upon  the  minds  of  the 
natives."  And  then  Mr.  Moister  adds  a  very  instructive  anec- 
dote. The  clergyman  returned  to  England  after  four  years' 
absence,  bringing  with  nini  three  native  boys  for  education. 
The  fate  of  two  of  them  is  not  recorded  ;  but  the  third,  Quaque, 
received  the  highest  privileges  which  England  and  her  National 
Church  could  bestow  upon  him.  He  was  sent  to  Oxford, 

*  Colonization  and  Missions,  by  J.  Tracy,  Secretary  of  the  Haas.  Col.  Socy. 
p.  30. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA. 

"  ordained,"  after  completing  his  studies  at  that  venerable 
university,  and  finally  dispatched  to  his  own  country  as  the 
government  chaplain.  "This  post,"  says  Mr.  Moister,  "he 
continued  to  occupy  for  more  than  fifty  years ;  but  it  does 
not  appear  that  he  was,  instrumental  in  turning  any  of  his  fel- 
low-countrymen to  the  faith  of  Christianity.  Nor  is  this  matter 
of  surprise,  when  it  is  known  that,  on  his  death-bed,  he  had,  at 
least,  as  much  confidence  in  the  influence  of  the  fetish  as  in 
the  power  of  Christianity."* 

Commencing  our  history  with  this  characteristic  example  of 
the  combined  influence  of  England's  principal  Church  and 
University,  let  us  now  examine  the  successive  events  which 
that  history  records.  Not  that  Quaque  was  really  the  first  rep- 
resentative of  English  Protestantism  in  Africa ;  for  as  early  as 
1553,  as  Mr.  Hugh  Murray  relates,  Windham  conducted  an 
expedition  to  these  shores  whicli  came  to  naught,  "  through  the 
flagrant  misconduct  of  those  intrusted  with  it."  The  same  fate 
attended  a  good  many  succeeding  expeditions.  When  Gran  ville 
Sharp,  "the  indefatigable  benefactor  of  the  Africans," — at  least 
in  intention — sent  Dr.  Smeathman  in  1786  to  found  a  settle- 
ment near  Sierra  Leone,  "about  sixty  whites,  but  who  were 
chiefly  women  of  abandoned  character,  debilitated  by  disease, 
were  embarked  on  board  the  transports  furnished  by  govern- 
ment." Again,  in  1792,  when  the  island  of  Bulama  was  ceded 
to  Great  Britain,  "  the  majority  of  those  who  went  out  with 
Mr.  Dairy niple  were  persons  of  the  most  infamous  characters 
arid  vicious  habits."f 

In  1795,  two  missionaries  were  sent,  "  but  owing  to  indiscre- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  one,"  and  the  illness  of  the  other,  "  the 
mission  was  speedily  abandoned."^ 

In  1796,  the  London,  Scottish,  and  Glasgow  missionary 
societies,  afrer  deliberating  on  past  failures,  resolved  to  make 
4i  a  united  attempt."  But  unity  and  Protestantism  do  not  co- 
exist; so  "this  also,"  we  are  told,  "owing  to  sickness  and 
dissension,  was  attended  with  no  better  success. "§ 

In  1799,  the  African  Association  sent  out  Frederic  Horneman. 
the  son  of  a  German  clergyman.  When  he  and  his  party 
reached  Sciva'h,  they  were  menaced  with  instant  death  as  Chris- 
tians ;  and  then  was  enacted  one  of  those  curious  scenes  which 
are  found  only  in  Protestant  annals,  but  which  are  perhaps  less 
curious  than  the  comments  made  upon  them  by  Protestant 

*  Memorials  of  Missionary  Labor  in  W.  Africa,  cli.  i.,  p.  41.    Cf.  Ashantee 
and  the  Gold  Coast,  by  John  Beecham,  cli.  x.,  p.  258. 
f  Discoveries,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  eh.  iv.,  pp.  263,  281. 
i  Western  Africa,  by  J.  D.  East,  ch.  xi.,  p.  277. 
|  Ibid. 

39 


594  CHAPTER   VII. 

writers.  "  On  this  difficult  occasion,"  says  Murray, — a  vehe 
hement  satirist  of  the  Catholic  religion, — "  Horneman  acted  his 
part  with  great  courage."  Perhaps  you  anticipate  that  lie  gave 
his  life  for  the  faith  ?  But  this  was  not  Mr.  Horneman's  view 
of  the  value  of  life ;  so  "  he  drew  out  a  copy  of  the  Koran,  and 
displayed  his  skill  in  reading  and  interpreting  that  sacred  stan- 
dard of  the  Mussulman  faith."  Having  produced  "a  deep 
impression,"  says  the  Protestant  historian,  by  this  unexpected 
action,  "our  traveller,  who  had  thus  established  his  reputation 
as  an  orthodox  Mussulman,  left  with  the  caravan."  Finally, 
in  1805,  Sir  William  Young  was  informed  by  the  British  consul 
at  Tripoli,  that  Horneman  was  living  amongst  the  Mahometans, 
"highly  respected  as  a  Marabout  or  Mussulman  saint."  In 
that  dignity  he  seems  to  have  died  about  1809.* 

In  1810,  an  Englishman,  one  Adams,  was  captured  by  Ma- 
hometans, and  carried  to  Timbuctoo.  There  he  appears  to  have 
solaced  his  retirement  by  certain  irregularities,  which  might 
have  been  overlooked,  says  Murray,  but  that  they  were  deemed 
ua  truly  unpardonable  crime '  in  a  Christian  who  never  prayed.'  "f 

Thus  far  the  history  is  uniform,  and  Africa  had  not  yet  in- 
curred any  sensible  obligations  to  England.  And  even  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  later,  we  still  encounter  the  same  phenomena, 
"which  the  annalist  of  Protestant  missions,  wherever  their  scene 
may  be,  strives  in  vain  to  avoid.  "  It  has  happened  to  myself," 
says  one  who  represented  the  British  government  in  these 
regions,  in  1825,  "  to  have  seen  one  missionary  lying  drunk  in 
the  streets ;  to  have  known  a  second  living  with  a  negress,  one 
of  his  parishioners  ;  and  a  third  tried  for  the  murder  of  a  little 
boy  whom  he  had  flogged  to  death."  And  then  he  adds,  "That 
system  does  not  work  well,  in  which  the  removal  of  such 
individuals  requires  a  representation  from  the  governor  of  a 
colony  to  the  secretary  of  a  private  society,  who  becomes  the 
judge  whether  the  governor's  objection  shall  be  acquiesced  in 
or  not."J 

*  Murray,  vol.  ii.,  p.  445. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  501. 

%  Travels  in  Western  Africa,  by  Major  Alexander  Gordon  Laing,  p.  393. 
When  we  consider  what  is,  in  every  case,  the  ostensible  profession  of  a  mission- 
ary, and  that  he  is  voluntarily  pledged,  before  men  and  angels,  to  exhibit  in  the 
sight  of  the  heathen  the  loftiest  type  of  Christian  perfection,  AVC  may  reasonably 
feel  surprise  at  the  apprehensions  which  the  directors  of  Protestant  Societies 
appear  to  entertain  of  the  probable  frailty  of  their  agents.  So  diffident  are  they 
of  the  purity  of  their  emissaries,  and  so  imminent  do  they  consider  even  such  ca- 
lamities as  Major  Laing  records,  that  some  at  least  of  their  number  have  devised 
a  special  machinery  to  deal  with  these  familiar  cases.  This  singular  fact  is  inci- 
dentally revealed  by  Dr.  Morrison,  of  Canton,  in  forwarding  to  his  society  certain 
disclosures  "of  an  unpleasant  nature,"  relating  to  some  of  his  younger  col- 
leagues, which  lie  suggests,  "should  be  considered  in  the  secret  department." 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  595 

It  is  time  to  notice,  without  further  delay,  the  final  result  of 
operations  which  commenced  so  inauspiciously.  We  may  state 
it  in  a  few  sentences.  We  have  seen  that  the  first  Protestant 
emissary  reached  Sierra  Leone  in  1751, — the  gentleman  who 
afterwards  conducted  Quaque  as  an  undergraduate  to  Oxford; 
more  than  a  century  has  elapsed,  therefore,  since  the  inaugura- 
tion of  missionary  efforts  in  this  colony.  Afzelius,  a  Swedish 
botanist,  relates  that  "un  batiment  rempli  de  missionaires 
methodistes,"  started  from  London  in  October,  in  1797  ;  and  that 
a  similar  expedition  the  previous  year  had  been  completely 
unsuccessful.*  What  with  "indiscretion"  in  some,  and  "dis- 
sension "  in  all,  the  earlier  attempts  were  evidently  a  series  of 
failures.  At  length  the  English  government  being  solidly 
established  throughout  the  colony,  and  the  natives  not  only 
reconciled  to  their  new  masters,  but  full  of  admiration  for  the 
opulent  missionaries  who  paid  them  with  unexpected  liberality 
for  their  presence  at  school  and  chapel,  the  constitution  of  the 
various  missions  was  permanently  organized,  and  Sierra  Leone 
rejoiced  in  the  possession  of  nineteen  different  forms  of  the  Prot- 
estant religion.  We  cannot  be  expected  to  trace  the  history  of 
them  all,  still  less  of  those  modifications  of  Christianity  which 
the  negroes  have  invented  for  themselves,  and  which,  being 
administered  by  black  preachers, — such  as  "Domingo  the  Inde- 
pendent," and  "  Hector  the  Baptist," — have  attracted  the 
special  sympathies  of  enthusiastic  congregations.  Some  of  the 
sermons  delivered  in  these  chapels  are  not  altogether  such  as  a 
refined  ear  would  hear  with  satisfaction,  and  the  expositions  of 
"  the  Bible "  of  which  they  are  appropriate  theatres  would 
perhaps  be  more  revolting  to  a  Christian  than  any  sounds  which 
were  ever  uttered  in  these  regions  before  Protestantism  set  its 
seal  upon  thein.f  Let  us  confine  ourselves,  however,  to  the 
operations  of  the  Anglican  missions,  of  which  a  voluminous 
history  has  been  compiled  by  the  Eev.  Samuel  Walker,  and 
which  may  be  taken  as  a  type  of  the  rest. 

(Memoirs,  ii.,  34.)  Dr.  Campbell  relates,  that  in  the  solemn  exhortation  to  the 
missionaries  who  introduced  Christianity  to  Polynesia  "in  her  native  purity," 
the  prescient  clergyman  who  occupied  the  pulpit  gave  this  unusual  but  not  su- 
perfluous warning :  "  Sons  of  men,  beware  of  the  daughters  of  women !"  The 
Catholic  Church,  sure  of  the  vocation  of  her  apostles,  is  content  to  say  to  them, 
as  St.  Paul  said  to  St.  Timothy,  "Neglect  not  the  grace  that  is  in  thee." 

*  Precis  sur  /Sierra  Leona,  par  C.  B.  Wadstrom,  p.  87. 

f  The  latest  writer  on  Western  Africa  gives  examples  both  of  the  kind  of 
preaching  adopted  in  these  places,  and  of  the  results  of  negro  education  in 
Protestant  schools,  which  make  it  doubtful  whether  negroes  have  not  found 
in  their  nominal  Christianity  only  a  more  irreparable  calamity  than  that  of 
which  it  is  supposed  to  be  the  remedy.  But  it  is  impossible  to  quote  language 
which  is  only  a  deplorable  medley  of  blasphemy  and  nonsense.  European 
Settlements  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa,  by  Captain  J.  F.  Napier  Hewett, 
F.R.G.S.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  103 ;  ch.  xvi.,  p.  !£49  (1862). 


596  CHAPTER  VII. 

There  would  be  more  profit  in  following  Mr.  Walker  through 
the  six  hundred  pages  of  his  volume,  if  it  were  really  a  history 
of  benefits  conferred  upon  this  unhappy  population  ;  but  as  his 
work  consists  mainly,  not  to  say  exclusively,  of  panegyrics 
upon  the  extraordinary  virtues  of  the  missionaries  and  their 
wives,  and  incessant  records  of  their  marriages  and  of  the  for- 
tunes of  their  children,  the  natives  themselves  are  only  noticed 
parenthetically.  Still  we  may  glean  something  even  from  his 
somewhat  monotonous  biographies,  though  they  resemble  one 
another  so  exactly  that  a  single  individual  might  have  been  the 
hero  of  them  all. 

In  1836,  then,  Mr.  Walker  relates  that  "the  journals  of  the 
missionaries  are  this  year  abundantly  supplied  with  proofs  of 
the  obstinate  adherence  of  the  natives,  although  professing 
Christianity" — he  means  Protestantism — "to  the  superstitious 
usages  of  their  country."  And  then  he  notices,  that  some  at 
least  of  these  "obstinate"  disciples  were  "communicants"  of 
the  Church  of  England  !* 

Elsewhere  Mr.  Walker  candidly  intimates,  that  in  spite  of 
their  wealth  and  their  long  occupation  of  the  field,  they  can- 
not compete  with  their  Mussulman  rivals.  "The  spread  of 
Mahommedanism  at  Charlotte  this  year  was  most  distressing  to 
the  missionaries,  who  observe,  in  their  report  for  the  year, 
'The  emissaries  of  the  false  prophet  have  manifest  advantages 
over  the  teachers  of  the  Christian  religion  in  this  colony,  the 
latter  having  so  few  natives  to  support  them.'  "f 

Yet  through  the  whole  period,  in  spite  of  such  confessions 
and  many  more  like  them, — in  spite  of  the  acknowledged 
paucity  of  their  disciples,  and  the  fact. that  the  best  of  them, 
the  "  communicants,"  obstinately  adhered  to  pagan  usages, — 
reports  were  forwarded  to  England  exactly  such  as  the  mis- 
sionaries used  to  transmit,  with  such  courageous  indifference  to 
truth,  probability,  and  common  sense,  from  the  islands  of  the 
Pacific.  Thus  one  of  the  missionaries,  the  Kev.  Mr.  Johnson, 
— who  describes  his  congregation  to  his  friends  in  England  as 
"  five  hundred  black  faces  prostrate  at  the  throne  of  grace  "- 
declares,  in  language  which  one  is  ashamed  to  repeat,  that  "all 
the  people  seem  to  be  hungering  after  the  righteousness  of 
Jesus."  And  again,  "It  is  really  wonderful  to  see  the  dealings 
of  the  Lord  with  this  people.":); 


*  The  Chwch  of  England  Mission  in  Sierra  Leone,  p.  379. 

f  P.  305. 

\  Africa's  Mountain  Valley,  cli.  vii.,  p.  117  (1856).  It  is  probably  consoling 
to  the  subscribers  to  be  told  by  the  Wesleyan  Missionary  Society,  in  1862,  that 
the  devout  negroes  of  Benguema  <(are  still  holding  fast  that  which  they  have, 
that  no  man  take  their  crown !"  Report,  p.  94. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  597 

Either  this  gentleman  or  a  missionary  of  the  same  name 
addressed  two  letters  from  Sierra  Leone  to  an  Anglican  minis- 
ter, which  afford  a  lively  picture  of  the  class  of  agents  employed 
by  the  Church  Missionary  Society  to  represent  the  Anglican 
establishment  among  the  heathen.  "  When  I  was  nineteen," 
is  his  account  of  himself,  "  I  ran  from  my  father's  home,  spent 
all  I  had,  and  parted  with  my  last  shirt."  He  next  became 
a  soldier,  and  creditably  finished  that  part  of  his  career  by 
deserting.  "  How  I  came  to  be  engaged  in  the  Church 
Missionary  Society,"  he  says,  "  I  cannot  exactly  explain  now  ;'' 
though  the  explanation  seems  particularly  simple.  He  does, 
however,  explain  by  what  process,  after  being  a  vagabond  and  a 
deserter,  he  became  "  converted."  This  is  a  point  on  which 
gentlemen  of  this  class  are  usually  communicative.  "  A  portion 
of  Scripture,"  he  relates,  "  darted  into  my  mind,  and  instantly 
broke  my  stony  heart,  and  I  saw  what  a  rebel  I  was."  After 
this,  his  introduction  to  the  Church  Missionary  Society  was 
inevitable.  He  did  not,  however,  join  them  till  he  had  u  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  Arminians,  who  brought  me  into  deep  mire," 
— from  which  he  was  seasonably  delivered  "  by  the  triune  arid 
covenant  Jehovah."  Fortified  with  the  sympathy,  and  the 
salary  of  the  society,  he  now  started  for  Sierra  Le^one,  which  he 
"found  stocked  with  Arminians,"  to  whom,  he  says,  he 
"  preached  a  full  Saviour."  His  doctrine,  he  adds,  "was  not 
relished"  by  his  fellow-missionaries,  wlio  had  each  his  own 
gospel,  with  which  his  was  not  in  harmony.  So  they  contrived 
to  get  him  sent  into  the  country,  where,  by  his  own  account, 
he  soon  collected  a  large  flock  of  negroes,  who  were  entirely 
free  from  any  Arminian  taint.  They  were  all,  he  reports, 
"  under  the  Divine  teaching,"  though  he  incautiously  adds,  a 
little  later,  "  but  I  believe  the  real  number  of  believers  is  still  but 
small."  All  this  he  communicates  freely  to  his  Anglican  friend, 
u  being  fully  persuaded  that  you  daily  watch  the  sovereign  acts 
of  our  covenant  Jehovah."  Whether  he  was  only  a  successful 
comedian,  or  had  finished  his  exemplary  career  by  insanity,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  decide ;  but  it  is  right  to  add  that  the 
biographer  of  Dr.  Hawker  considers  that  he  was  "  more  em- 
inently blessed  of  God"  than  any  of  his  Anglican  colleagues  in 
Africa,  and  that  his  choice  of  Dr.  H.  as  his  correspondent  was 
an  additional  proof  of  the  universal  reputation  of  the  latter.* 
Mr.  Venn  also,  the  clerical  secretary  of  the  Church  Missionary 
Society,  assures  the  subscribers  to  that  institution,  who  appear 
to  require  constant  stimulants  of  this  kind,  that,  compared  with 

*  Works  of  the  Rev.  Robert  Hawker,  D.D.,  Vicar  of  Charles,  Plymouth ; 
Memoirs,  vol.  i.,  p.  73  (1831). 


598  CHAPTER  VII. 

the  triumphs  of  Mr.  Johnson,  those  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  "  sink 
into  insignificance."* 

We  should  probably  err,  however,  in  supposing  the  statements 
of  these  singular  missionaries  to  be,  in  every  case,  deliberate 
untruths.  Ihey  admit  of  another  explanation.  Mere  physical 
excitement,  which  such  teachers  often  mistake  for  religious 
emotion,  though  it  comes  and  goes  like  a  summer  cloud,  will 
partly  account  for  them.  And  moreover,  to  receive  a  Bible,  to 
quote  it  as  readily  as  a  popular  song,  to  come  occasionally  to 
chapel,  and  to  assume  the  name  of  Christian — these  were  the 
accepted  tokens  of  "  conversion ;"  and  all  who  could  do  thus 
much,  no  matter  from  what  motive,  were  sincerely  described  as 
u  hungering  after  righteousness."  They  satisfied  the  aspirations 
of  their  teachers  by  this  remote  imitation  of  Christianity,  and 
the  pastor  and  his  flock  were  mutually  content,  f 

Another,  and  a  conclusive  proof  of  effectual  conversion 
consisted  in  their  i; observance  of  the  Sabbath  day."  "The 
Africans,"  says  a  Protestant  missionary, — who  was  evidently 
quite  sure  of  his  audience,  and  knew  what  they  could  bear, — 
"rose  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  Sabbath  day.";]:  To  that  enjoy- 
ment let  us  leave  them,  in  the  hope  that  they  may  one  day 
aspire,  not  in  vain,  to  a  deeper  and  truer  religion.  Meanwhile, 
two  facts  represent  the  final  results  which  we  have  no  space  to 
illustrate  further.  England  has  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  her 
colony,  because  "  the  total  gain  to  the  industry  and  revenue  of 

*  The  Missionary  Life  and  Labors  of  Francis  Xavier,  &c.,  by  Henry  Venn, 
B.D.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  261. 

f  "  If  there  be  one  thing  more  than  another  about  the  popular  religion  of  the 
day,  it  is  the  cultivation  of  the  religious  feelings  ....  For  this  reason  it  is  that 
we  see  around  us  so  many  strange  develorments  of  a  religion  of  mere  feeling 
....  In  vain  does  reason  point  out  that  they  can  tell  us  but  little  of  the  deep 
heart  within.  They  are  the  mere  phenomena  of  our  own  consciousness  ;  they 
are  the  mere  lights  and  shadows  which  float  over  the  surface  of  our  being,  and 
have  but  little  to  do  with  our  real  inward  life.  They  come  and  go,  and  are  de- 
pendent upon  a  thousand  things,  which  are  not  our  real  selves  ....  We  do  not 
perceive  that  we  are  mistaking  the  lights  that  play  upon  the  surface  of  our  souls 
for  its  deepest  depths  ;  so  eager  are  we  to  hear  news  of  God  in  our  exile.  We 
think  that  God  is  talking  to  us,  when  we  are,  in  fact,  only  talking  to  ourselves. 

....  Each  of  the  errors  which  we  have  noticed  is  a  desperate  spring  at  the 
substance  of  God  across  the  wide  gulf  which  yawns  between  fallen  humanity  and 
its  Creator  ....  The  con  version  of  the  Methodist  is  the  fanatical  eagerness  of  the 
soul  to  know  the  day  and  hour  of  its  reconciliation  to  God.  Even  the  sickly 
self-contemplation  of  the  evangelical,  arises  from  the  same  desire  to  feel  the  pres- 
ent God.  All  long  for  repose  in  God,  and  so  far  they  are  right.  They  err  with 
a  fatal  error  in  taking  the  phenomena  for  the  substance,  but  it  is  better  to  seek 
the  reality  than  to  give  up  all  search  for  God  and  to  acquiesce  in  the  world. 

....  The  fall  was  the  universal  shipwreck,  and  men" — outside  the  Church 
— "  are  tossing  about  the  wild  waves  on  a  broken  raft,  driven  to  madness  by 
their  thirst  for  the  living  waters."  F.  Dalgairns,  The  Holy  Communion,  ch 
iii.,  pp.  69,  70. 

\  Africa's  Mountain  Valley,  ch.  x.,  p.  179. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  599 

the  mother  country  cannot  be  less  than  six  hundred  thousand 
pounds  per  annum  ;"  and  England's  religion  is  perhaps  con- 
tent with  the  modest  success  revealed  in  the  following  figures, 
supplied  by  Mr.  Walker,  who  admits,  in  1847,  that  although 
there  were  five  thousand  three  hundred  and  eleven  children  in 
the  various  schools  of  the  colony,  the  whole  number  of  "  at- 
tendants on  public  worship,"  including  those  who  did  not  even 
profess  any  definite  religion,  and  the  communicants  who  still 
adhered  obstinately  to  their  ancient  superstitions,  was  only  six 
thousand  five  hundred  and  seventy-six,  after  the  labors  of  a' 
century.* 

That  some  good  has  been  effected,  at  least  by  individuals, 
and  especially  in  the  diffusion  of  elementary  education,  we 
may  easily  believe,  though  we  shall  presently  be  warned  by 
Protestant  writers  not  to  feel  too  confident  even  on  this  point  ;f 
and  that  "  the  children  turned  out  of  missionary  schools  are 
vagabonds  ;"  but  that  any  thing  like  primitive  Christianity  has 
been  established  amongst  this  people,  or  could  be  by  such 
teachers,  who,  at  the  best,  were  only  examples  of -domestic 
propriety,  we  cannot  venture  to  hope.  Men  whose  chief  em- 
ployment, as  Mr.  Walker  shows,  is  "  marrying  and  giving  in 
•marriage,"  may  display  many  natural  virtues,  and  even  per- 
suade the  heathen,  in  rare  cases,  to  outward  decency  of  life ; 
but  to  make  them  Christians  indeed  is  a  work  which  God  has 
reserved  for  those  who  begin  by  offering  to  Him  the  sacrifice 
of  their  own  lives,  and  who,  like  Massaia  and  Jacobis,  have  the 
vocation  of  apostles  and  the  spirit  of  martyrs. 

Let  us  add,  however, — for  it  is  pleasant  to  meet  with  even  a 
solitary  exception  in  the  dreary  history  which  we  are  tracing, 
— that,  of  late  years,  some  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  in 
this  colony  have  shown  higher  qualities  than  are  commonly 
displayed  by  their  class  ;  and,  though  they  have  shared  the  in- 
coherent opinions  of  their  colleagues,  have  manifested  a  certain 
zeal  and  benevolence  which  deserves  the  sympathy  of  Catholics, 

*  Introd.,  p.  29,  and  p.  589.  At  a  later  date  they  claim,  as  might  be  expected, 
an  increased  number  of  "  converts,"  while  they  admit  the  characteristic  fact, 
that  the  disciples  of  the  Methodists  were  to  those  of  the  Anglicans  in  the  pro- 
portion of  five  to  four.  Captain  Hewett  observes  also,  in  1862.  that "  the  church 
missionaries"  only  make  them  covetous  and  lazy,  "  their  minds  having  been  im- 
bued by  their  injudicious  teachers  with  the  notion  of  equality  with  the  whites, 
and  that  the  white  man  is  made  to  minister  to  their  wants."  Ch.  xvii.,  p.  817. 

f  In  1863,  the  "  principal  of  the  Grammar  School'  at  Sierra  Leone,  where  the 
most  propitious  results  might  be  looked  for,  makes  the  following  singular  re- 
port. "  The  moral  tone  of  the  school,  which  I  greatly  lamented  in  my  last  re- 
port, I  am  thankful  to  be  able  at  this  time  to  state  has  been  much  improved ; 
in  fact,  every  thing  seems  to  bid  fair  just  now;  but  knowing  too  well  the  in- 
stability of  the  youthful  character,  I  rejoice  with  fear  and  trembling."  Re- 
port of  Church  Missionary  Society,  p.  28  (1862J. 


600  CHAPTER  VIT. 

and  suggests  the  prayer  which  St.  Augustine  once  offered  for 
men  of  a  similar  character,  that  "God  may  teach  them  the 
truth  which  they  think  they  know." 

Senhor  Valdez,  the  latest  writer  on  Western  Africa,  though 
professing  to  be  a  Catholic,  appears  to  have  spent  most  of  his 
time  with  Protestant  missionaries.  They  have  "  done  all,"  he 
observes,  "  that  human  ingenuity  could  suggest  for  the  amelio- 
ration of  the  temporal,  and  for  the  promotion  of  the  spiritual 
condition  of  the  liberated  Africans."  A  little  later,  he  is  "  as- 
tonished at  their  great  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures;''  and  then 
he  adds,  like  Mr.  Cruickshank,  Mr.  Duncan,  and  other  Prot- 
estant witnesses  who  shall  be  quoted,  "  I  only  wish  their  gen- 
eral conduct  was  more  in  unison  with  the  Divine  precepts ;  for 
I  was  informed  that  some  of  them  were  very  partial  to  their 
heathen  customs,  especially  polygamy,  and  were  in  other 
respects  immoral.  Man  may  give  instruction,  but  he  cannot 
give  grace."*  It  is  pleasant,  however,  to  be  able  to  believe, 
from  this  gentleman's  account,  that  some  of  the  English  mis- 
sionaries, apparently  of  more  than  one  sect,  have  displayed  of 
late  both  zeal  and  perseverance  in  their  attempts  to  improve 
the  lot  of  the  African,  and  if  they  cannot  make  him  a  Chris- 
tian, have  at  least  done  all  which  they  knew  how  to  do  with 
that  object. 

If  now  we  leave  Sierra  Leone,  and  travel  southwards,  we  shall 
come  to  the  Gold  Coast,  and  to  the  kingdoms  of  Ashantee  and 
Dahomey.  Mr.  Brodie  Cruickshank,  of  Cape  Coast  Castle,  a 
friend  of  the  missionaries,  and  a  member  of  the  Legislative 
Council,  will  describe  to  us  the  operations  on  the  Gold  Coast. 
Alluding  to  all  that  was  attempted  previous  to  the  suppression 
of  the  slave-trade,  this  gentleman  says,  "It  was  one  long,  dark 
career  of  unfeeling  selfishness,  without  a  single  aspiration  for 
the  improvement  of  the  natives.  Our  motives  were  perfectly 
understood  by  them,  and  placed  us  at  once  on  an  equality  of 
footing  with  them."  And  then  he  enters  into  details  about  the 
missionaries.  "  The  pay  given  by  them,"  he  says — and  they 
corresponded  with  him  confidentially  as  one  of  their  own  school 
— "  to  the  young  men  whom  they  employed  as  teachers  being 
fully  equal  to  that  given  by  the  merchants,  and  a  greater  number 
of  them  being  required  for  this  service,  the  missionary  employ- 
ment became  an  object  of  ambition  with  many,  as  much,  we 
are  assured,  in  many  instances,  for  the  sake  of  the  loaves  and 
fishes,  as  from  a  sincere  and  earnest  desire  to  promote  the  cause 
of  Christianity.  This  inducement  drew  a  number  of  the  best 


*  Six  Years  in  Western  Africa,  by  Francisco  Travassos  Valdez,  vol.  i.,  ch 
vi.,  pp.  274,  287. 


MISSIONS   IN  AFRICA.  601 

educated  natives  within  the  pale  of  the  society  ;"  while 
"masons,  carpenters,  laborers,"  and  others  employed  by  the 
missionaries  in  building,  "  in  like  manner  swelled  the  ranks  of 
the  Christian  community."* 

Thus  far  we  have  an  authentic  account  of  the  mode  in  which 
their  congregations  were  collected  ;  and  Commander  Foote,  of 
the  United  States  navy,  judiciously  observes,  that  the  mission- 
aries have  this  additional  advantage  in  their  contest  with  the 
Mahometans,  that  the  natives  easily  perceive  that  "  Christian- 
ity now  stands  contrasted  with  Mohammedanism,  as  being  the 
deliverer,  while  the  latter  is  still  the  enslaver."f  In  spite  of 
these  inappreciable  aids,  Mr.  Cruickshank  gives  precisely  the 
same  account  of  the  Protestant  converts  which  we  have  heard 
in  so  many  other  countries.  Of  their  use  of  the  Bible,  he  says, 
that  "  texts  which  seemed  to  bear  some  reference  to  the  pe- 
culiar situation  of  individuals  were  wrested  to  suit  their  views, 
and  to  minister  to  their  inclinations  and  wants."  And  then  he 
goes  on  thus,  though  he  was  the  associate  of  their  teachers,  and 
the  earnest  advocate  of  their  efforts. 

"  We  are  constrained  to  believe  that  many  of  the  converts 
were  either  laboring  under  a  hypocritical  delusion,  or  that  the 
frailty  of  human  nature  exhibited  itself  with  a  uniformity  of 
weakness  truly  humiliating  and  deplorable."  "There  are  only 
a  very  few  exceptions,"  he  adds  presently,  "  to  a  general  relapse 
into  immorality,  when  motives  of  personal  interest  no  longer 
bound  them."  And  again,  as  if  the  picture  were  not  sufficient- 
ly gloomy,  "  it  is  lamentable  to  have  to  state,  that  many  of  the 
best  educated  and  most  intelligent  men,  who,  some  years  ago, 
were  most  distinguished  for  zeal  for  Christianity,  and  who 
occupied  the  first  rank  among  the  office-bearers  of  the  society, 
are  now  living  without  its  pale,  while  the  offices  are  filled  by 
an  inferior  class."  He  allows  that  some  good  is  done  by  the 
numerous  Protestant  schools,  which  the  natives  attend  solely 
to  quality  themselves  for  advancement,  but  "  it  is  rare  for  a  lad 
leaving  the  school  to  observe  such  a  correct  deportment  as  will 
admit  him  to  the  honor  of  membership."  Finally,  after  a  pain- 
ful description  of  the  "gloomy  and  morose  austerity  which 
seems  to  pervade  the  ministrations  of  the  missionaries,"  he 
concludes  with  these  words :  "  It  has  often  been  a  question, 
whether,  with  the  pecuniary  means  placed  at  the  disposal  of 
the  Gold  Coast  mission,  greater  results  might  not  have  been 
expected.";); 


*  Eighteen  Tears  on  the  Gold  Coast  of  Africa,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  G8. 
f  Africa  and  the  American  Flag,  ch.  xxxiv.,  p.  388. 
i  Pages  73,  et  seq. 


602  CHAPTER   VII. 

Throughout  the  whole  region  the  same  invariable  facts  recur. 
Of  the  Episcopalian  missionaries  at  Cape  Palmas,  Mr.  Tracy,  a 
Protestant  minister,  reports  that,  as  late  as  184L',  "  the  chiefs 
entered  into  a  conspiracy  to  kill  the  missionaries  and  plunder 
their  premises."*  Mr.  Kelly  explains,  in  the  same  year,  that 
"  the  disorder  originated  in  this  way.  The  Protestant  ministers 
had  forestalled  almost  all  the  trade  of  the  coast,  to  the  great 
injury  of  the  American  merchants.  Deplorable  consequences 
flowed  from  this  rivalry.  .  .  .  The  king  and  his  subjects  took 
up  arms,  and  appeared  resolved  to  set  fire  to  the  Protestant 
establishments."  Meanwhile,  we  are  told,  the  Catholic  mis- 
sionaries "  continued  to  visit  the  sick  and  to  teach  the  catechism 
without  meeting  with  the  slightest  insult;"  for  even  the  angry 
natives  knew  that  they  had  no  interest  in  the  schemes  of  the 
rival  traders.f 

Again :  the  American  Board  for  Foreign  Missions  confess, 
with  respect  to  the  operations  conducted  in  the  same  place 
under  their  special  superintendence,  that  even  "the  colonists, 
as  a  body,  regard  the  missionaries  and  their  enterprise  with  ill 
will  ;"J  because  they  find  them  their  most  formidable  rivals  in 
all  commercial  speculations.  Dr.  Morrison  tells  also  the  usual 
tale  of  a  certain  "Mr.  II.,"  a  Protestant  missionary,  who  "fell 
into  a  state  of  mournful  backsliding,  and  greatly  dishonored 
his  sacred  ealling."§  Yet  it  is  to  maintain  such  persons  and 
their  families  in  opulent  idleness,  that  England  and  America 
consume  annually  nearly  three  millions  sterling,  with  no  result 
whatever  but  to  make  Christianity  a  proverb  among  the 
heathen  !  Most  of  them,  too,  as  we  have  seen  in  China  and 
elsewhere,  do  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  learn  the  dialects  of 
the  people  to  whom  they  are  supposed  to  preach.  "  I  cannot 
but  express  my  surprise,"  observes  a  Protestant  minister, 
who  was  deputed  to  visit  the  West  African  missions  directed 
by  his  own  community,  "  that  in  eighteen  year*  no  attempt 
has  been  made  to  acquire  and  speak  the  languages  of  the 
country."] 

Of  Dahomey,  Commander  Forbes  relates  that  "  the  Moham- 
medan religion,  spreading  over  the  vast  continent  of  Africa,  is 
gaining  millions  of  converts  ;"*["  while  Mr.  Duncan,  another 
friend  of  the  Protestant  missionaries,  gives  this  candid  report  ad 
to  the  working  of  'their  schools  :  "All  that  these  young  men 

*  Historical  Examination  of  the  State  of  Society  in  W.  Africa,  p.  25. 
f  Quoted  in  Annals,  vol.  iv.,  p.  246. 
\  East,  p.  295. 

§  The  Fathers  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  app.,  p.  596. 
|  Lift  and  Journals  of  the  llev.  D.  West,  cli.  viii.,  p.  184. 
1"  Dahomey  and  the  Dafioinaita,  vol.  i.,  p.  170  (1851). 


MISSIONS    IN    AFRICA.  603 

aspire  to,  is  to  get  something  in  the  fashion  of  European 
clothing,  and  to  seek  employment  as  clerks."  He  deplores  the 
"  little  benefit"  of  "  a  partial  education  by  merely  reading  the 
Scriptures,"  and  adds  that,  u  in  many  instances  this  partial 
education  is  only  the  means  of  enabling  them  to  become  more 
perfect  in  villany"*  Yet  the  missionaries,  in  order  to  swell 
their  funds,  could  gravely  describe  these  poor  Africans  as 
"  prostrate  before  the  throne  of  grace,"  and  u  hungering  after 
righteousness." 

And  now  let  us  attempt  a  brief  review  of  Catholic  missions 
in  West  Africa.  From  Senegarnbia  to  Congo  and  the  southern 
limits  of  Guinea,  through  nearly  forty  degrees  of  latitude,  on 
both  sides  of  the  equator, — and  from,  the  Atlantic  towards 
Soudan  and  for  three  hundred  miles  into  the  interior. — the 
Catholic  faith  has  been  preached,  with  an  efficacy,  as  Protest- 
ant writers  will  tell  us,  which  sufficiently  attests  its  Divine 
power.  It  was  in  the  fifteenth  century  that  apostolic  mission- 
aries commenced  their  labors  in  the  kingdoms  of  Congo, 
Loango,  and  the  contiguous  regions.  To  discover  a  new  realm, 
and  to  dispatch  to  it  without  an  hour's  delay  the  messengers 
of  peace,  was  the  unfailing  practice  of  Spain,  Portugal,  and 
France,  animated  by  still  more  zeal  for  the  salvation  of  souls 
than  for  conquest  and  renown.  About  the  year  1485,  as  Merolla 
relates,  three  Dominican  Fathers  entered  Congo  :  the  first  was 
martyred,  and  the  other  two  died  of  the  climate. f  Their  suc- 
cessors, as  well  as  the  sons  of  St.  Francis,  "  penetrated  deep 
into  Congo,"  as  Dr.  Ley  den  remarks,  u  and  even  into  the 
regions  behind,  explored  by  no  other  European.":):  A  little 
later,  the  Jesuits  carried  the  Cross  into  the  same  country  ;  and 
that  we  may  comprehend  at  once,  by  one  prodigious  fact, — re- 
vealed to  us  by  Protestant  testimony, — what  was  the  nature  of 
their  work,  let  us  hear  an  English  witness,  who  writes  from 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  in  the  year  1859.  At  that  recent 
date,  the  Protestant  editor  of  an  African  journal  declares, 
that  "  the  Jesuits,  before  their  expulsion,  effected  so  much, 
that  the  natives  in  the  large  districts  are  still  taught  to  read 
and  write,  the  work  of  education  being  carried  on  by  native 
teachers  "§ 

This  remarkable  fact,  characteristic  of  the  strangely  enduring 
influence  of  the  Catholic  apostolate,  is  more  than  confirmed  by 
Dr.  Livingstone,  who  tells  us,  with  the  frank  honesty  which 
distinguishes  that  manly  writer,  that  '•  the  Jesuit  teaching  has 

*  Travels  in  Western  Africa,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  42  ;  vol.  ii.,  cli.  xiii.,  p.  3C3. 
f    Voyage,  to  Congo,  Pinkerton,  vol.  xvi.,  p.  215. 

\  Discoveries  and  Travels  in  Africa,  by  J.  Leyden,  M.D.,  vol.  i.,  cli.  i.,  p.  77. 
§  Tlie  Cape  and  Natal  News,  January  #1,  ISM,  p.  80. 


604  CHAPTER  VII. 

been  so  permanent"  in  spite  of  a  century  of  abandonment  and 
calamity,  that  even  at  this  day  "  the  Prince  of  Congo  is  pro- 
fessedly a  Christian,  and  that  there  are  no  fewer  than  twelve 
churches  in  that  kingdom,  the  fruits  of  the  mission  established 
in  former  times  at  San  Salvador,  the  capital  ;"*  and  further, 
that  the  poor  deserted  natives,  to  whom  Portugal,  fallen  from 
the  glory  of  other  days,  has  no  longer  Jesuits  to  send,  still  try, 
in  spite  of  their  ignorance,  "  to  keep  up  the  ceremonies  of  the 
Church  !"  Woe  to  the  men  who  robbed  Africa  of  her  apostles, 
and  restored  to  the  Enemy  so  many  victims  who  had  been 
rescued  from  his  dominion. 

There  is  no  need  to  trace  in  all  its  details  the  history  of  the 
missions  of  which  Dr.  Livingstone  and  others  have  noticed  the 
actual  remains,  and  which  declined  because,  in  consequence  of 
the  constant  mortality  of  the  missionaries,  the  forcible  suppres- 
sion at  a  later  period  of  religious  societies  in  various  parts  of 
Europe,  and  the  total  absence  during  a  long  course  of  years  of 
apostolic  teachers,  there  was  no  one  left  to  maintain  them.  It 
was  the  special  misfortune  of  Western.  Africa  to  be  connected 
with  an  empire  already  corrupted,  faithless  to  Catholic  tradi- 
tions, and  rapidly  hastening  to  ignominious  decay,  owing  to  the 
gradual  extinction  of  all  religious  principle  amongst  its  rulers; 
and  Proyart  was  probably  riot  mistaken  when  he  said  that  the 
immoralities  of  the  Portuguese  accelerated  the  ruin  of  their 
missions  in  Africa. 

In  India,  the  influence  of  Portugal,  once  a  chosen  instrument 
in  the  designs  of  Providence,  has  for  many  years  been  unfavor- 
able to  religion  and  morality.  Since  the  hour  when  Pombal, 
too  well  imitated  by  his  successors,  cast  away  the  traditions 
which  had  made  her  one  of  the  noblest  and  mightiest  of 
European  nations,  and  adopted  the  political  philosophy  of 
Protestantism,  which  refuses  to  the  Creator  any  share  in  the 
government  of  civil  society,  decay  and  ruin  have  marked  the 
history  of  Portugal,  till  at  length  the  "  most  faithful"  kingdom 
has  become  contemptible  in  "the  eyes  of  the  world,  and  her 
colonies,  with  the  exception  of  Brazil,  are  a  proverb  for  the 
feebleness  and  disorder  which  Brazil  only  escaped  by  timely 
separation.  "  It  is  deplorable,"  says  Senhor  Yaldez,  speaking 
of  a  colony  of  three  thousand  Catholic  Africans,  in  the  island 
of  Anno  Bom,  "to  see  such  destitution  of  religious  services  as 
exists  among  them."f  And  this  is  not  a  solitary  case.  But 
Portugal,  which  has  lost  all  religious  fervor  at  home,  except  in 
the  hearts  of  the  poor,  is  unworthy  to  be  any  longer  a  nursery 
of  apostolic  missionaries,  and  the  cloud  which  broods  over  the 

*  Missionary  Travels  in  8.  Africa,  ch.  xxi.,  pp.  411,  426. 
f  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  63. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  605 

land  of  De  Britto  and  Laynez  casts  its  shadow  even  upon  the 
"  streamless  deserts"  of  Africa. 

From  1554  to  1626,  eight  bishops  ruled  in  succession  the 
Church  in  Congo  ;  but  from  1648,  "  the  kingdom  remained 
without  any  clergy,"*  and  in  1814  the  king  vainly  implored 
the  Portuguese  monarch  to  "  send  clergymen  to  Congo."  Yet 
we  learn  from  Proyart,  that  when  some  missionaries  visited  the 
interior  towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  they  found 
a  province  (Sogno)  in  which,  afrer  their  long  abandonment, 
u  the  people  still  continued  Christians,  and  publicly  professed 
the  faith,  and  their  horror  of  idolatry,"  and  were  accustomed  to 
offer  prayers  to  God  to  send  them  a  missionary,  f  Such  facts, 
proper  to  the  history  of  Catholic  missions,  sufficiently  indicate 
the  influence  once  exerted  in  these  countries  by  men,  who,  as 
Murray  scornfully  relates,  "  sometimes  exercised  an  authority 
almost  paramount  to  that  of  the  sovereigns." 

The  same  unfriendly  annalist  repeatedly  admits  the  courage 
and  tirmness  with  which  they  "insisted  upon  a  strict  conformity 
to  the  Christian  rule."  Hoefer  tells  us  of  one  of  them  who 
'  converted  the  king  of  Mahonga  and  all  his  family,"  and  yet 
found  leisure  to  publish  a  Grammar  arid  Dictionary  of  the 
Bonda  language  ;f  and  an  infidel  French  writer  confesses  that 
"  there  is  something  marvellous"  in  the  fact,  that  "  a  few  igno- 
rant missionaries,"  as  he  absurdly  styles  such  men  as  Colombia! 
and  Cannecattim,  "  were  able  to  snatch  a  whole  people  from 
their  ancient  customs  and  their  gods."§ 

"  It  is  astonishing,"  says  a  Protestant  writer  already  quoted, 
"  to  find  what  a  hold  the  Portuguese  have  got  upon  the  tribes 
far  into  the  interior,  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  conclude  that 
the  enlightenment  and  happiness  of  Africa  in  future  ages  will 
depend  very  much  upon  them."||  May  Portugal  once  more 
prove  worthy  of  the  sublime  mission  which  Providence  in- 
trusted to  her  in  earlier  days !  Already  there  are  signs  of  her 
resurrection.  It  is  Dr.  Livingstone  who  tells  us,  that  "  the 
good  influence  of  the  Bishop  of  Angola,  both  in  the  city  and 
the  country,  is  universally  acknowledged,"  and  that  he  is  es- 
pecially active  in  "  promoting  the  establishment  of  schools." 
The  same  excellent  writer  reports  of  the  abandoned  district  of 
Ainbaca,  which  he  traversed,  that  "  it  is  now  quite  astonishing 

*  Valdez,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  85. 

f  Histoire  de  Loango,  Kakongo,  et  autres  Royaumes  d'Afrique,  par  M.  1'AWW 
Proyart,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  317  (1770). 

\  Afrique  Australe,  par  M.  F.  Hoefer,  p.  471  (1848). 

§  Encyclopedic  de  Voyages,  par  J.  Grasset  de  S.  Sauveur  ;  Mosurs  des  Habi 
tans  du  Congo,  p.  16. 

\  The  Cape  and  Natal  News. 


606  CHAPTER   VII. 

to  observe  the  great  numbers  who  can  read  and  write  in  this 
district.  This  is  the  fruit  of  the  labors  of  the  Jesuit  and  Capuchin 
missionaries,  for  they  taught  the  people  of  Ambaca ;  and  ever 
since  the  expulsion  of  the  teachers  by  the  Marquis  of  Pombal, 
the  natives  have  continued  to  teach  each  other.  These  devoted 
men  are  still  held  in  high  estimation  throughout  the  country  to 
this  day.  All  speak  well  of  them — os  padres  Jesuitas"  And 
then  Dr.  Livingstone  utters  a  regret,  which  we  also  may  share, 
though  not  for  precisely  the  same  reasons,  that  the  Jesuits  did 
not  4*~give  the  people  the  Bible,  to  be  a  light  to  their  feet,  when 
the  good  men  themselves  were  gone."* 

Yet  this  distinguished  traveller  will  confess,  that  to  translate 
the  sacred  Scriptures  into  the  African'  dialects,  a  work  in  which 
Protestant  missionaries,  with  all  their  leisure,  have  not  hitherto 
been  very  successful,  was  hardly  possible  to  men  absorbed  by 
the  toils  of  their  apostolic  calling,  and  speedily  worn  out  by 
exhaustion  and  the  influence  of  such  a  climate.  And  we  may 
add,  without  disrespect  to  this  worthy  man,  that,  from  his  own 
account,  which  we  shall  have  the  advantage  of  quoting  present- 
ly, these  very  men  effected  so  much  more,  without  the  aid  of 
such  translations,  than  his  own  colleagues  have  accomplished 
with  them,  that  for  upwards  of  a  century  their  potent  influence 
has  survived  them  ;  nor  will  he  deny,  with  the  facts  of  Prot- 
e"8tant  missions  before  him.  that  while  millions  of  Christians, 
during  the  early  ages,  attained  to  the  closest  union  with  God, 
though  they  never  saw  a  Bible,  thousands  in  our  own  day,  who 
have  almost  learned  it  by  heart,  are  still  as  far  from  any  saving 
knowledge  of  Him  as  the  pagans  themselves. 

We  have  now  only  to  state,  in  conclusion,  what  Catholic 
missionaries  are  doing  in  "West  Africa  at  the  present  moment. 

Twenty  years  have  not  elapsed  since  Dr.  Barren,  formerly 
Vicar-general  of  Philadelphia,  was  appointed  by  the  Holy  See 
Bishop  of  Constantina  and  Vicar- Apostolic  of  Upper  and  Lower 
Guinea.  Landing  at  Cape  Pal  mas  during  the  rainy  season, 
with  a  band  of  missionaries,  who  were  immediately  dispersed 
to  various  points  along  the  coast,  but  who  did  not  lind  so  much 
as  a  roof  to  shelter  them,  almost  all  were  cut  off  by  death  in 
rapid  succession.  The  Abbe  de  Regnier  fell  first.  "  Tell  my 
family  and  friends,"  were  his  last  words,  "  that  I  rejoice  at  hav- 
ing left  all  for  our  Divine  Master."  Father  Bouchet  was  the 
next  to  sink,  followed  in  a  few  weeks  by  Fathers  Audebert, 
Laval,  Roussel,  and  Maurice.  Finally,  of  seven  who  had  ar- 
rived in  health  and  vigor,  one  only,  the  Abbe  Bessieux,  re- 
mained alive. 

*  Ch.  xix.,  p.  382. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  607 

Six  months  after,  in  June,  1845,  the  solitary  survivor  wrote 
as  follows  from  Gaboon  :  "  I  shall  soon  see  zealous  colleagues 
succeeding  the  friends  whom  I  have  lost,  encouraging  and 
sustaining  my  feeble  steps.  For,  God  forbid  that  you  should 
forsake  this  poor  Africa !"  Already  he  had  discerned  that  the 
tribes  on  the  sea-coast  had  formed  their  estimate  of  Europeans 
from  the  miserable  examples  before  their  eyes,  and  had  judged 
the  spurious  Christianity  offered  to  them ;  but,  he  added, 
there  are  tribes  in  the  interior,  "  reared  in  privations,  inured 
to  toil,  and  famous  for  their  courage.  They  know  that  there 
is  nothing  in  common  between  the  Catholic  priests  and  the' 
foreign  traders.  To  them  we  will  go  first ;  this  is  a  conquest 
which  the  ministers  of  error  will  not  venture  to  dispute 
with  us." 

Four  months  later,  the  same  intrepid  missionary  had  twelve 
native  children  residing  under  his  charge,  and  could  say  :  u  I 
do  not  fear  to  assert,  that  there  is  at  Gaboon  a  multitude  of 
souls  ready  to  receive  the  heavenly  seed."  But  he  was  alone, 
and  poor,  without,  as  he  observed,  "  the  immense  resources  of 
the  Protestant  ministers."*  Let  us  leave  him  fora  moment, 
to  follow  the  steps  of  others. 

In  184:7,  his  colleague,  Father  Briot  de  la  Maillerie,  wrote 
from  Ndakar,  a  station  on  the  Gaboon.  Already  they  had 
established  a  training  seminary,  in  which  were  "  twelve  native 
Levites,  whose  good  conduct  and  docility  have  singularly  edi- 
fied us,"  and  who  had  learned  to  sing  in  the  Wolof  tongue  "  the 
praises  of  Jesus  and  Mary."  In  the  same  year  these  students 
were  present  at  the  ordination  of  the  Abbe  Gallais,  and  "  their 
joy  was  at  its  height.  They  mutually  excited  each  other  to 
hasten  the  time  for  their  ordination.  Each  fixed  already  the 
district  which  he  would  take.  One  would  go  to  Cayot,  another 
to  Fouta  .  .  and  thus  the  whole  apostolic  vicariate  was  appro- 
priated!" "Be  persuaded,"  said  the  Abbe  Gallais,  a  little 
later,  "  that  these  negroes  are  not  such  as  calumny  has  so  often 
been  pleased  to  depict  them."  They  were  now  in  the  hands 
of  apostles  who  could  not  only  talk  to  them  of  a  far-off  Saviour, 
but  guide  them  to  His  feet. 

In  1852,  the  Abbe  .Durand  sends  these  tidings  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Gambia  :  "  Praise  be  to  God,  in  spite  of  numer- 
rous  obstacles,  amongst  which  the  snares  of  the  Methodists  are 
not  the  least,  the  Catholic  religion  has  made  rapid  progress  in 
this  country.  In  the  year  that  has  just  elapsed,  we  have  had 
one  hundred  and  thirty  baptisms,  and  have  admitted  forty  to 


*  Annals,  vol.  viii.,  p.  76 


608  CHAPTER   VII. 

their  first  communion.  The  dispositions  of  our  neophytes  are 
excellent."* 

By  the  year  1854,  out  of  a  total  of  seventy-five  missionaries 
sent  to  Western  Africa,  forty-two  had  already  perished  ;  but 
there  remained  at  that  date  two  bishops,  fifteen  priests,  eleven 
lay  brothers,  and  nineteen  sisters.  "  Our  Christians,"  says  the 
coadjutor  Vicar- Apostolic  in  that  year,  uare  generally  faithful 
to  their  religious  duties,  especially  in  localities  not  frequented 
by  Europeans.  We  have  forty  pupils  in  the  central  house  ot 
studies  at  Ndakar," — by  the  following  year  the  number  had 
increased  to  sixty;  "henceforth  many  of  the  principal  diffi- 
culties may  be  regarded  as  overcome ;  traditions  have  been 
formed,  an  administrative  organization  has  been  established, 
and  is  beginning  to  work  with  regularity. "f 

But  the  bishop  was  destined  to  encounter  a  trial  which  even 
apostolic  zeal  could  neither  avert  nor  resist.  Twice  since  the 
date  of  his  letter  every  Catholic  missionary,  including  all  the 
bishops,  has  been  swept  away  by  pestilence.  Warned  by  these 
repeated  calamities,  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  appear  to  have 
adopted  the  conclusion  that  the  evangelization  of  Western 
Africa  must  henceforth  be  mainly  committed  to  a  native 
clergy ;  and  to  secure  a  staff  of  competent  native  missionaries 
is  now  the  aim  of  the  Holy  See.  But  the  dead  have  not 
labored  in  vain. 

At  Goree,  by  the  year  1845,  there  were  already  twelve  hun- 
dred Catholics  ;  and  a  Protestant  missionary  reports,  in  1850, 
"  the  people  of  Goree  were  all  either  Mahometans  or  Roman 
Catholics.";): 

The  native  king,  a  Mahometan,  assured  the  Abbe  de  la 
Maillerie,  that  he  had  no  objection  to  his  commencing  a  school 
for  his  people,  "since  it  was  for  a  good  object ;"  and  a  little 
later  Father  Arragon  could  give  this  encouraging  account :  "At 
Goree,  as  in  all  Africa,  the  harvest  to  be  gathered  is  immense 

The  Marabouts  are  pleased  to  see  us  in  this  country ; 

they  salute  us  when  they  meet  us  ;  they  are  fond  of  saying  that 
they  esteem  us,  because  we  love  the  great  God.  Again,  the 
people  are  warmly  attached  to  us,  and  show  themselves  grateful 
for  the  smallest  services.  .  .  .  With  regard  to  the  Mahometans 

*  A  Protestant  missionary  on  the  Gambia  records  the  following  triumphs  in 
1802  :  "  We  have  been  enabled  to  go  to  the  '  highways  and  hedges'  to  invite 
sinners  to  Christ,  and,  blessed  be  God,  we  have  not  returned  without  suc- 
cess. A  Popo  woman,  who  was  an  idolatress,  has  of  late  forsaken  her  idols, 
and  is  now  bowing  at  the  feet  of  Jesus.  We  are  also  glad  to  report  that  a  Man- 
dingo  woman  has  been  admitted  on  trial."  Wesleyan  Mis.  Soc.  Report,  p.  90. 

f  Vol.  xv.,  p.  380.  On  the  Feast  of  the  Epiphany,  1863,  a  native  student 
from  the  Gambia  recited  a  composition  in  his  own  language  before  the  College 
of  Propaganda. 

\  Moister,  ch.  ii.,  p.  70. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  609 

also,  we  are  not  without  grounds  of  hope  ....  The  blindness 
of  this  people  arises  chiefly  from  their  ignorance ;  far  from 
repulsing  the  truth,  they  in  general  wish  for  it ;  and  the  prog- 
ress of  the  Gospel  will  be  commensurate  with  the  means  of 
instruction."  lie  then  relates  this  anecdote :  "  One  evening 
two  Marabouts  came  into  our  house  while  a  little  black  was 
giving  out  prayers  to  the  other  children.  This  sight  filled  them 
with  surprise.  One  of  them  observed  to  his  companion,  '  these 
people  will  be  taking  away  the  Koran  from  us.'  Then  address- 
ing himself  to  me,  he  said :  '  If  you  only  stay  two  years  at 
Isdakar,  there  will  be  no  more  Mahomet — nothing  but  the 
missionary.'  May  his  prediction  be  accomplished,  and  God 
alone  be  adored,  served,  and  loved  by  a  people  to  whom  He 
has  been  so  long  unknown  !"* 

Let  us  add,  in  conclusion,  a  single  example — for  there  is  no- 
need  of  many — of  the  manner  in  which  converts  are  made  in 
this  country,  and  in  which  they  subsequently  display  the 
evidence  of  their  reconciliation  to  God.  One  of  the  missionaries, . 
Father  Poussot,  had  been  attacked  in  the  night  by  a  fanatic,, 
and  severely  wounded.  Shortly  after,  Vane,  the  chief  of  a> 
neighboring  village,  presented  himself  before  his  companion 
Father  Bouchet,  with  these  words:  "  Father,  I  have  been  long 
a  Christian  at  heart,  but  I  am  determined  to  be  one  in  deed.. 
Wash  me  with  the  water  of  prayer  (baptism)  ....  You  told 
me  that  your  God  loved  mankind,  and  sent  his  Son  on  earth  to 
save  them ;  that  this  Son  died  for  them  on  a  cross,  and  that 
instead  of  taking  revenge  upon  His  executioners,  He  pardoned 
them,  and  even  prayed  for  them ;  and  you  planted  a  cross  in 
our  village.  I  thought  all  this  very  fine,  but  still  I  was  not  in 
heart  a  Christian."  Then  raising  his  voice,  and  continuing 
with  great  animation,  he  said  :  "  But  do  you  remember  our 
coming  home  together  one  day  through  the  forest  of  Mpongues? 
You  were  told  that  the  Father,  your  companion,  had  been 
wounded  the  previous  night  by  a  slave,  and  that  his  face  was 
cut  open.  I  was  enraged  at  his  cowardly  and  shameful  act,, 
and  if  I  had  met  the  slave,  I  should  have  stabbed  him.  But 
you,  Father,  said  nothing;  you  raised  your  eyes  to  heaven.  I 
was  watching  what  you  would  do.  You  pardoned  the  slave;, 
you  begged  that  he  might  not  be  punished.  The  wounded 
Father  also  came  some  time  after,  not  yet  quite  recovered.  He 
was  not  angry.  He  spoke  and  prayed  with  us  in  his  usual 
manner,  and  had  a  meeting  with  his  intended  murderer.  Then 
I  said  to  myself  and  others,  'This  Father  loves  us;  he  doe» 
what  he  says /  he  pardons  his  enemies.  His  word,  therefore,. 

*  Annals,  vol.  viii.,  p.  89. 
40 


610  CHAPTER  VII. 

is  true.'  From  that  moment  I  was  in  heart  a  Christian,  and  I 
am  now  resolved  to  be  so  forever."* 

The  chief  was  instructed  and  baptized.  "  The  whole  family," 
Father  Bouchet  adds,  "have  followed  the  example  of  their 
chief,  and  form  at  the  present  day  a  nucleus  of  fervent  and 
courageous  Christians,  already  tried  by  persecution,  and,  if 
called  upon,  prepared  for  martyrdom."  The  trial  came — 
destitution,  cruelty,  loss  of  friends  and  relatives,  and  menaces 
of  a  worse  fate.  All,  even  the  children,  endured  it  with 
unmoved  fortitude.  When  the  father  was  loaded  with  chains 
by  the  infidels,  and  they  were  about  to  carry  him  away,  his 
second  son  exclaimed,  "  Take  me  instead  of  my  father ;  he  is 
infirm,  I  shall  be  of  more  use  to  you."  The  offer  was  accepted, 
and  the  youth  consigned  to  prison,  with  no  other  consolation 
than  a  crucifix,  which  one  of  his  sisters  conveyed  to  him.  The 
pagans  proposed  to  restore  the  old  chief  to  his  former  position, 
if  he  would  consent  to  apostatize.  "  I  am  a  servant  of  the  great 
God,"  he  replied,  "and  must  obey  his  orders  rather  than  yield 
to  your  desires.  I  have  said  it,  henceforth  nothing  shall 
persuade  me  to  depart  from  the  will  of  God."  "  Admirable 
and  holy  old  man,"  exclaims  Father  Bouchet,  the  witness  of 
these  scenes ;  "  how  often  have  I  wept  for  joy  over  his  conver- 
sion !  At  Mass,  in  a  special  manner,  his  devotion  is  beyond  all 
praise,  when  kneeling  absorbed  in  meditation  on  the  adorable 
mysteries.  There  it  is  that  his  faith  is  constantly  revived,  and 
from  this  source  he  derives  courage  to  say  with  St.  Paul :  '  I 
can  do  all  things  in  Him  who  fortifies  me.' " 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  history  of  Christian  missions  in 
this  part  of  Africa,  during  the  last  twenty  years,  without  admit- 
ting, that  if  the  Catholics  possessed  even  a  small  portion  of  the 
immense  temporal  resources  which  the  two  richest  nations  in 
the  world  continually  place  at  the  disposal  of  the  Protestant 
emissaries,  so  as  to  enable  them  to  found  educational  institutions, 
and  to  promote  the  other  works  of  charity  so  urgently  needed 
in  this  land  of  poverty,  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  would  be 
immensely  accelerated.  But  poverty  is  not  the  greatest  obstacle 
to  the  success  of  the  Catholic  mission.  There  is  a  yet  more 
formidable  and  fatal  hindrance.  When  the  heathen  or  the 
Mahometan  has  learned,  in  spite  of  ignorance  and  prejudice,  to 
venerate  teachers  who  lead  an  apostolic  life,  and  who  display 
even  to  his  dull  apprehension  the  marks  of  a  supernatural 
calling;  when  the  power  of  the  demon  is  already  shaken,  and 
light  begins  to  dawn  upon  the  soul ;  the  half-awakened  native 
is  sure  to  be  presently  confounded  and  embarrassed  by  the 

*  Vol.  xvii.,  p.  216. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  611 

apparition  of  others,  also  styling  themselves  ministers  of  the 
Christian  religion,  though  attended  by  groups  of  females  and 
children,  surrounded  by  comfort  and  opulence,  and  leading 
before  his  eyes  the  common  life  of  common  men ;  and  when 
these  teachers  speak  to  him,  in  strange  and  unnatural  accents, 
about  a  Book  of  which  they  comprehend  nothing  but  the  letter, 
and  a  Saviour  of  whom  they  know  nothing  but  the  Name ;  the 
perplexed  inquirer  begins  to  suspect  that,  after  all,  Christianity 
is  only  a  delusion,  its  advocates  only  impostors.  The  grave  and 
devout  pastors  whom  he  had  begun  to  love  and  admire,  he  is 
now  told,  are  but  the  insidious  professors  of  a  wicked  and  false 
religion  ;  while  the  worldly  and  immortified  men,  who  hasten 
to  offer  him  their  gold  and  their  Bibles,  are  the  only  preachers 
of  pure  Christianity.  What  marvel  if  the  angry  heathen  con- 
found the  religion  and  its  professors  in  a  common  sentiment  of 
contempt  and  aversion  ?  or  resolve,  at  the  bidding  of  the  baser 
instincts  of  his  nature,  to  make  the  Christian  religion  a  source 
of  gain,  and  to  sign  a  contract  which  leaves  his  conscience  un- 
touched, while  it  redoubles  his  repugnance  to  teachers  who  are 
themselves  the  first  victims  of  the  hypocrisy  which  they  create 
and  recompense  ?  We  have  said,  and  it  may  be  repeated  with- 
out exaggeration,  that  Protestant  missions  are  everywhere  the 
worst  and  most  fatal  impediment  to  the  conversion  of  the 
heathen  ;  because  they  add  to  the  difficulties  which  beset  him, 
in  common  with  those  which  were  surmounted  by  the  primitive 
converts,  a  multitude  of  others,  unknown  to  the  pagans  of 
earlier  days,  which  had  no  existence  till  Protestantism  arose, 
and  with  which  even  the  Apostles  themselves  would  perhaps 
have  contended  in  vain.  Protestantism — let  us  once  more  de- 
clare it — is  the  last  scourge  of  heathenism. 

Before  we  approach  the  only  region  of  Africa  which  now 
remains  to  be  visited,  it  may  be  well  to  resume,  in  the  words 
of  a  Protestant  minister,  formerly  a  missionary  in  these  regions, 
the  history  which  we  have  briefly  traced.  In  1856,  nearly  one 
hundred  and  sixty  years  after  England  had  carried  Protestant- 
ism to  Western  Africa,  the  character  and  results  of  missionary 
labor  in  these  provinces  were  thus  appreciated  by  Mr.  Leighton 
Wilson.  "  The  Church  of  Rome  deserves  great  praise  for  the 
zeal  she  displayed  in  following  up  all  the  Portuguese  and 
Spanish  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  with 
efforts  to  extend  the  Christian  faith.  The  Portuguese  govern- 
ment itself,  at  the  commencement  of  these  enterprises,  was  in- 
fluenced as  much  by  a  desire  to  propagate  the  Catholic  faith, 
as  by  any  expectations  of  commercial  gain.  In  the  course  of 
time,  when  unexpected  sources  of  wealth  were  opened  up  by 


612  CHAPTER  VII. 

these  discoveries,  she  lost  sight,  in  a  great  measure,  of  the  for- 
mer of  these  objects,  and  gave  herself  up  wholly  to  an  absorb- 
ing pursuit  of  the  latter.  The  Church  of  Rome,  however,  was 
not  diverted  from  her  purpose  by  any  such  motives.  She  ad- 
dressed herself  to  the  one  great  object  of  converting  these 
newly  discovered  tribes  to  the  Romish  faith,  and  she  pursued 
her  calling  with  an  energy,  zeal,  and  perseverance  worthy  of  a 
better  cause." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  emissaries  of  Protestantism,  who 
have  been  described  to  us  by  their  co-religionists  as  often  pro- 
foundly immoral,  and  almost  always  engaged  in  the  eager  pur- 
suit of  wealth,  are  thus  noticed  by  the  same  writer.  "  Had 
Protestant  nations  and  the  Protestant  Church  pursued  the  same 
work  with  half  the  zeal  and  steadiness,  the  moral  aspect  of  the 
world  at  the  present  time  would  have  been  very  different  from 
what  it  is."  And  then  he  gives  this  account  of  the  actual  fruits 
of  their  operations,  backed  by  the  support  of  England  and 
America,  and  aided  by  immense  resources,  during  a  century 
and  a  half.  "A.8  yet,  the  missionaries  have  done  little  more 
than  possess  themselves  of  the  outposts  ;  but,  in  accomplishing 
even  this  much,  they  feel  themselves  greatly  indebted  to  what 
has  been  done  by  the  squadron"* 

Once  more  we  have  received  the  confessions,  with  which  we 
are  now  familiar,  and  which  we  shall  hear  again  in  every  land 
which  we  have  still  to  visit.  Once  more  we  have  been  told  by 
a  Protestant  missionary,  who  had  himself  abandoned  the  un- 
profitable work,  the  accustomed  tale,  which,  in  default  of  his 
testimony,  we  should  have  learned  from  others.  There  was  as 
much  prudence  as  candor  in  Mr.  Wilson's  tardy  admissions. 
In  1842,  the  mission  of  Baraka,  the  principal  station  on  the 
Gaboon  river,  was  inaugurated  by  that  gentleman.  In  1861, 
after  twenty  years  of  costly  effort,  Mr.  Paul  du  Chaillu,  the 
intimate  associate  of  the  missionaries,  records  their  own  avowal, 
that  they  despair  of  acquiring  any  influence  over  the  adult  na- 
tives of 'Western  Africa.  They  have  some  hope,  he  says,  of  the 
children  in  their  schools, — they  have  always  hopes  which  are 
doomed  never  to  be  accomplished,  and  have  already  educated 
one  generation  in  vain, — but  "it  is  only  upon  the  children  that 
the  labors  of  the  missionaries  can  have  any  important  effects." 
They  may  well  be  "discouraged,"  he  suggests,  "at  the  slight 
result  of  their  hard  labor."  "  The  positive  success  of  the  mis- 
sion," he  reluctantly  observes,  "  is  not  great ;"  and  we  may 
accept  his  impartial  estimate  of  it,  when  he  relates  that,  after 

*  Western  Afi-ica,  by  J.  Leighton  Wilson,  ch.  iii.,  p.  446 ;  ch.  v.,  p.  481. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  613 

the  "  inculcation  of  Bible  precepts"  during  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century,  "  the  older  natives  adhere  to  their  vile  superstitions, 
and  are  with  difficulty  influenced.  If  they  come  to  church,  it 
is  too  often  out  of  curiosity,  or  to  please  the  preacher,  or  from 
some  fancied  advantage  to  themselves."*  In  other  words,  a 
liuman  religion  is  incapable,  in  Africa  as  in  every  other  land, 
of  effecting  what  only  a  Divine  ministry  can  profitably  attempt, 
or  of  imitating  those  triumphs  of  a  holier  faith  which  the 
agents  of  Protestantism  are  always  occupied  in  recording,  and 
always  contrasting,  in  spite  of  themselves,  witli  their  own 
blighted  hopes  and  unfruitful  toil. 

Mr.  Leighton  Wilson,  whose  candid  testimony  we  have  heard, 
was  himself  a  Protestant  missionary.  Let  us  conclude  our 
notice  of  Western  Africa  with  the  evidence  of  one  of  those  lay 
writers  whose  verdict  is,  if  possible,  still  more  conclusive,  be- 
cause announced  after  a  still  wider  observation,  and  in  spite  of 
prepossessions  not  less  incurable.  We  have  said,  and  shall 
nave  occasion  to  repeat  the  remark,  that  the  latest  report  of 
Protestant  missionary  enterprise,  in  whatever  region  of  the 
earth,  is  always  the  worst.  A  new  example  of  this  truth  claims 
our  attention. 

In  1862,  Captain  Napier  Hewett,  whose  religious  sympathies 
were  wholly  with  the  Protestant  missionaries,  and  who  warmly 
commends  the  zeal  which  distinguishes  individuals  among  them 
from  the  mass  of  hirelings  and  adventurers,  gives  us  the  follow- 
ing information:  "Though  the  country,"  he  says,  "  exhibits  a 
teeming  fertility,  unsurpassed  by  any  thing  on  earth,  the  greater 
part  lies  uncultivated  waste;  .  .  .  the  lands  once  tilled  sre 
abandoned,  and  the  houses,  except  those  inhabited  ~by  the  m«v- 
sionariesj  desolate  and  decaying."  "It  seems,"  adds  this  impar- 
tial observer,  "  as  though,  like  some  of  the  West  India  islands, 
a  blight  had  fallen  on  the  place ;"  and  this  calamity  he  at- 
tributes to  "bad  management,  false  philanthropy,  and  an 
insufficient  schismatic  priesthood."181 

Having  given  this  account  of  the  colony  of  Sierra  Leone, 
Captain  Hewett  furnishes  the  following  report  of  Bathurst : 
"The  place  of  worship  pertaining  to  the  Established  Church  of 
England  is  a  small  building,  whose  neglected,  unfinished  in- 
terior, devoid  of  altar,  plainly  indicated  the  blighted  state  and 
stunted  growth  of  that  religion  in  the  colony ;  but  the  Catholic 
church  is  a  large  and  commodious  structure,  as  is  likewise  the 
Wesleyan  chapel,  which,  unlike  the  place  of  worship  of  the 
Mother  Church,  possesses  a  large  and  extremely  well-attended 
school."  It  was  in  schools  of  the  latter  class  that  he  heard 

*  Adventures  in  Equatorial  Africa,  ch.  i.,  pp.  5,  6. 


614:  CHAPTER  VII. 

the  pupils  "bellowing  forth,  in  all  the  discordance  of  negro 
voice — 

'Oh  let  us  be  jyfool,  jyfool,  jyfool,  jyfool,'  " 
while  from  the  chapel  "  came  forth  the  favorite  negro  hymn — 

'Jerusalem!  Jerusalem! 
Heigh !  for  the  land  of  Canaan ! 
Canaan  is  a  pretty  spot, 
I'm  off  to  the  land  of  Canaan,'  "— 

a  melody  in  which  Captain  Hewett  seems  to  think  the  truths 
of  Christianity  are  somewhat  imperfectly  set  forth. 

Of  Bathurst,  he  adds,  "There  is  also  a  convent  of  French 
Sisters  of  Mercy,  who  instruct  children  of  their  own  persua- 
sion ;  and  these  heroic  ladies  brave  this  dreadful  climate,  re- 
linquish joy,  and  forego  every  tie  which  makes  life  pleasant, 
solely  to  tend  the  sick  and  comfort  the  afflicted."210 

Sometimes  he  gives  examples  of  individual  converts,  who 
have  been,  as  he  says,  "lionized  at  Exeter  Hall,"  and  who 
seem  to  have  been  worthy  of  that  distinction.  Of  one,  who 
was  "king  of  one  of  the  Eboe  tribes,  and  had  amassed  im- 
mense wealth  by  trading  in  the  flesh  and  blood  of  his  people," 
he  relates,  that  "having  been  ostensibly  converted  to  Chris- 
tianity, he  had  pretended  to  abandon  that  traffic,  had  become  a 
promising  protege  of  the  missionaries,  and  had,  in  lieu  of  slave- 
dealing,  taken  to  strong  waters,  and  literally  erected  a  rum 
cask  as  his  throne."  Being  expelled  by  the  people,  who  seem 
to  have  found  that  his  profession  of  Christianity  only  made  him 
a  more  intolerable  ruffian,  "  the  cause  of  this  rum-drinking,  but 
otherwise  spiritually  disposed  potentate,  was  taken  up  by  the 
missionaries,  who,  'requested,'  as  Sir  Charles  Wood  said  in 
explanation  to  the  House,  '  the  destruction  of  the  town,'  which 
was  accordingly  effected  by  the  British  squadron,  though  on 
what  grounds  this  cruel  act  was  undertaken  Sir  Charles  Wood 
was  unable  to  inform  the  House."119 

Captain  Hewett  observes  a  little  later,  that  "too  often  the 
missionaries,  these  professed  harbingers  of  Christianity  and 
peace,  are  pestilent  fomenters  of  strife  between  tribes,  and  have 
even  encouraged  the  natives  to  resist  the  Queen's  arms,  as  at 
Lagos,  where  the  British  force  sustained  a  disastrous  defeat.  .  . 
The  missionaries  are,  in  fact,  the  most  warlike  men  on  the 
coast."315 

Another  of  their  most  distinguished  converts  was  the  "  heir 
apparent  of  the  King  of  Barra,"  who  was  visited  by  Captain 
Hewett,  and  "  who  had  been  a  boasted  convert  by  the  mis- 


MISSIONS   IN    AFRICA.  615 

sionaries,  but  who,  like  most  of  the  so-called  converts^  had  re- 
lapsed into  barbarism,"  the  habits  of  his  court  being  such  that 
the  British  officer  was  obliged  to  decline  the  hospitality  of  this 
singular  disciple  of  Protestantism. 

Finally,  Captain  Hewett  presents  the  following  impressive 
summary  of  his  observations  in  Western  Africa.  After  reject- 
ing the  proposal  of  "  extended  propagation  of  the  Gospel  by 
distribution  of  numerous  missionaries  throughout  the  continent," 
because  "  the  competition  between  the  Church  and  the  rival 
sects  of  Dissenters  must  militate  against  the  success  of  this 
plan,  and  emasculate  the  little  good  it  possesses,"  he  concludes 
with  this  grave  statement :  "  Have  missionary  labors  produced 
any  beneficial  effect  in  the  colonies  themselves?  They  have  not. 
A  former  governor  of  Sierra  Leone,  when  under  examination 
before  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Lords,  some  years  since, 
being  asked  '  What  was  the  state  of  the  children  turned  out  of 
the  missionary  schools?'  replied,  'These  children  do  not  work; 
they  are  vagabonds ;  and,  without  the  immigration  of  liberated 
Africans,  we  could  not  get  on  at  all.' "  In  1852,  Captain 
Hewett  once  more  confirms  the  report  of  this  official  in  these 
terms:  "The  missionary  proteges  invariably  are  found  to  be 
idle,  lying,  cunning,  and  utterly  worthless ;  and  so  thoroughly 
is  this  fact  conceded,  that  no  dwellers  in  the  colonies  wish  to 
employ  as  servant  a  native  educated  in  the  missionary  schools!" 

Such,  by  Protestant  testimony,  is  the  final  result,  in  this  case 
also,  of  human  operations  which  force  even  so  friendly  a  wit- 
ness to  exclaim,  "  It  does  seem  sinful  to  expend,  when  is  re- 
membered the  vast  population  in  England  which  scarcely  knows 
the  rudiments  of  the  Christian  religion,  in  the  vain  endeavor  to 
regenerate  the  black  by  means  of  missionaries,  the  immense 
revenues  which  are  annually  dissipated."  "  Little  do  the  sub- 
scribers to  foreign  missions,"  he  adds,  "  dream  of  the  purposes 
to  which  their  money  is  devoted ;  little  do  they  comprehend 
the  character  of  the  men  to  whom  the  distribution  is  intrusted, 
and  in  what  manner  the  funds  are  lavished  ;  little  do  they 
know  the  small  amount  of  good  purchased  by  that  expenditure ; 
and  little  do  they  conceive  the  false  coloring  bestowed  upon 
the  reports  of  missionary  labors."* 

*  European  Settlements  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa,  ch.  viii.,  p.  119  ;  cli.  xi., 
p.  181  ;  ch.  xiii.,  p.  210  ;  cli.  xvii.,  pp.  315-318.  It  would  be  unprofitable  to 
multiply  examples  of  the  real  character  of  the  majority  of  Protestant  mission- 
aries, but  the  terms  i  ,  which  Captain  Hewett  records  one  of  them,  deserves 
notice.  "  The  missionaries  at  Bathurst,  feeling  the  want  of  creature  comforts, 
and  observing  that  the  officers  of  the  garrison,  by  the  aid  of  their  boat,  man- 
aged to  secure  these  carnal  advantages,"  resolved  to  "participate  in  the  lux- 
urv."  "  They  might  of  course  purchase  a  boat,  but  this  did  not  suit  them, 
and  the  question  arose  how  to  obtain  one  for  nothing  ?  This  would  puzzle  mos* 


616  CHAPTER  VII. 


SOUTH    AFRICA. 

The  southern  portion  of  the  vast  continent  of  whose  religious 
history  we  have  now  offered  an  imperfect  sketch  still  remains 
to  be  noticed.  We  have  spoken  of  the  Moor  and  the  Negro  ; 
some  account  must  be  given  in  conclusion  of  the  Kaffir  and  the 
Hottentot. 

In  1652,  Van  Riebeck  inaugurated  the  Dutch  reign  in  South 
Africa.  Twenty-eight  governors  followed  in  succession,  till  in 
the  year  1793  Holland  forfeited  her  possessions  to  Great  Britain. 
In  1795,  General  Craig,  the  first  representative  of  English 
power,  assumed  the  government  of  the  Cape  Colony.  It  is  of 
the  progress  of  religion  among  the  heathen  since  the  commence- 
ment of  the  latter  epoch  that  we  now  propose  to  speak. 

The  numerous  writers  on  South  Africa  are  in  accord,  as  their 
own  words  will  presently  assure  us,  on  one  point  only, — that 
both  the  Hottentot  and  the  Kaffir  have  degenerated  morally 
during  the  period  of  English  rule ;  but  an  eager  conflict  has 
arisen  amongst  them  as  to  the  real  cause  of  this  deterioration. 
While  the  missionaries  assert  in  self-defence,  that  it  is  the 
colonists  who  have  ruined  both  Kaffir  and  Hottentot,  the  latter 
confidently  retort,  with  wonderful  unanimity, — to  whatever 
rank  or  class  they  belong,  civil  or  military,- — that  it  is  mainly, 
and  with  rare  exceptions,  the  teaching  and  influence  of  the 
missionary  which  have  corrupted  all  the  native  tribes  who  have 
had  the  misfortune  to  come  wthin  the  reach  of  either.  When 
we  have  considered  the  evidence  which  they  offer,  we  shall  be 
able  to  judge,  without  much  danger  of  error,  on  which  side  is 
truth. 

The  first  facts  which  claim  our  attention,  and  which  consti- 
tute the  distinctive  features  of  Protestant  missions  in  every 
land,  are,  enormous  expenditure,  and  ceaseless  multiplication 
of  sects.  Nearly  twenty  years  ago,  Dr.  Grant  remarked  before 

people,  but  for  missionaries,  who  are  enabled  always  to  draw  on  the  inexhaust- 
ible exchequer  of  a  too  credulous  public,  the  matter  was  easy.  They  accord- 
ingly compiled  a  flaming  account  of  the  extraordinary  manner  in  which  their 
efforts  to  propagate  the  Gospel  in  Bathurst  had  been  crowned  with  success  ; 
how  many  negroes  had  been  received  into  the  pale  of  the  Church !  how  edify- 
ing werextheir  lives ;  and  that,  in  fact,  the  populace  had  become  so  virtuous, 
nothing  further  remained  to  them  to  effect  in  that  quarter.  But,  alas !  the 
benighted  ignorance  and  vice  in  which  the  tribes  across  the  rimr  were  steeped. 

if  they  had  only  a  boat,  a  multitude  might  be  gathered  into  the  fold. 

They  could  not  purchase  one  themselves,  because  they  had  to  deny  themselves 
many  luxuries,  many  comforts,  nay  even  necessaries.  Well,  the  next  vessel 
brought  out  a  boat,  and  that  boat  had  been  at  Bathurst  three  years,  and  had 
never  moved  from  the  shore,  except  when  the  steamers  arrived,  and  then  on 
the  same  errand  as  the  garrison  boat !"  Ch  iv.,  p.  59. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  617 

the  University  of  Oxford,  that  already  the  following  religious 
bodies  had  been  transplanted  to  the  Cape  Colony : — 1.  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel ;  2.  Scottish  Missionary 
Society  ;  3.  United  Brethren ;  4.  French  Protestant  Society ; 
5.  German  Missionary  Society  ;  6.  London  Missionary  Society  ; 
7.  Wesleyan  Missionary  Society ;  8.  Baptist  Missionary  Society  ; 
9.  American  Board  of  Missions;  10.  Rhenish  Missionary  Society  ; 
11  Paris  Missionary  Society.* 

We  have  seen  in  other  lands  the  hopeless  confusion  and 
disorder,  as  well  as  the  perplexity  occasioned  to  the  heathen, 
by  such  a  colluvies  of  sects.  In  1835,  Mr.  Moodie,  a  judicious 
and  temperate  writer,  commented  in  the  following  words  upon 
this  disastrous  but  inevitable  result :  "  Unfortunately  each  sect 
has  some  peculiar  dogma,  which  they  generally  inculcate-  to 
their  followers,  too  often  to  the  partial  exclusion  of  more  im- 
portant doctrines."  And  then  he  proceeds  thus :  "  Each  sect 
is  ambitious  of  increasing  the  number  of  its  followers  ;  a  spirit 
of  rivalry  amongst  them  is  the  necessary  consequence  of  this 
party  zeal,  which,  joined  to  that  external  gloom  and  austerity 
which  distinguishes  them  all,  naturally  creates  a  further  distaste 
for  their  instructions."f 

And  time,  the  sovereign  remedy  of  so  many  human  evils, 
only  aggravates  this.  Thus,  as  late  as  1855,  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Holden  tells  us,  even  of  the  new  province  of  Natal,  that  he 
found  seven  different  religious  denominations  in  one  spot ; 
"  enough,  one  would  suppose,  to  meet  the  diversified  creeds, 
tastes,  and  desires  of  the  inhabitants  !"J  Two  years  later,  we 
find  Dr.  Armstrong,  a  Protestant  Bishop  in  South  Africa, 
deploring  in  these  words  the  same  incurable  dissensions :  "  I 
could  not  but  be  saddened  by  the  thought  of  our  religious 
divisions.  No  less  than  three  places  of  worship  were  visible, 
as  I  approached  the  town,  Cradock,  besides  the  Church  of 
England.  This,  in  the  midst  of  a  population  of  some  seven 
hundred  people,  was  indeed  a  melancholy  spectacle."§  This 
gentleman  had  also  to  lament,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come 
to  examine  his  testimony,  the  implacable  divisions  within 
as  well  as  outside  his  own  sect,  and  his  own  incapacity  to  heal 
them. 

Such  is  the  spectacle  which,  in  Africa,  as  in  every  other 
land,  Protestantism  displays  to  the  heathen,  with  no  other 
effect  than  to  warn  them  against  adopting  a  religion  of  which 
these  are  the  invariable  fruits. 

*  Bampton  Lectures  for  1843. 

f  Ten  Years  in  South  Africa,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  280. 

±  History  of  the  Colony  of  Natal,  by  the  Rev.  W.  C.  Holden,  ch.  ix.,  p.  246. 

§  Memoir  of  Bishop  Armstrong,  by  the  Rev.  T.  T.  Carter,  p.  347  (1857). 


618  CHAPTER   VII. 

Dr.  Morrison  relates  of  a  number  of  missionaries  sent  out  by 
the  Scottish  Missionary  Society,  that  "  they  unhappily  differed 
among  themselves,  upon  some  minor  points  of  theology,  and 
some  of  them  failed  to  exhibit  that  spirit  of  charity  and  forbear- 
ance which  ought  to  distinguish  the  missionary  of  the  Cross."* 
Mr.  Pringle  also  describes  the  voyage  of  some  English  Protest- 
ants, who  were  always  engaged  keenly  in  polemical  discussions 
under  the  guidance  of  two  preachers."  They  fought,  he  says, 
with  so  much  bitterness,  that  they  soon  ceased  to  regard  each 
other  with  sentiments  of  Christian  forbearance."!  Lastly,  Dr. 
Livingstone  tells  us,  in  1857,  that  "in  South  Africa  such  a 
variety  of  Christian  sects  have  followed  the  footsteps  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society's  successful  career,  that  converts 
of  one  denomination,  if  left  to  their  own  resources,"  which  ap- 
parently means,  when  they  cease  to  be  paid,  "  are  eagerly  adopt- 
edby  another  •  and  are  thus  more  likely  to  become  spoiled 
than  trained  to  the  manly  Christian  virtues.";): 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  offer  any  illustrations  of  the  other 
point,  the  enormous  expenditure  of  these  jealous  and  conflicting 
sects,  each  outbidding  the  other.  Even  the  government  adds 
its  liberal  contributions  to  those  of  the  various  missionary 
societies.  Some  years  ago  the  education  grant  within  the  Cape 
colony  already  exceeded  five  thousand  pounds  per  annum  ;§ 
and  we  are  told,  in  the  Life  of  Dr.  Armstrong,  that  Sir  George 
Grey,  the  distinguished  and  justly  popular  governor,  "  proposes 
to  spend  no  less  a  sum  than  thirty  thousand  pounds  a-year  on 
missions."!  Dr.  Armstrong  asked,  for  his  own  share,  four 
thousand  pounds  a-year.  What  the  other  sects  spend,  we  may 
imagine,  but  need  not  stay  to  calculate.  And  now  let  us  ap- 
proach, without  further  preface,  the  grave  question  of  T-esulU, 
after  more  than  half  a  century  of  uninterrupted  effort. 

On  this  point  there  are,  of  course,  two  classes  of  witnesses ; 
the  missionaries,  who  loudly  assert, — with  the  exception  of 
truthful  and  respectable  men,  like  Livingstone,  Calderwood, 
Armstrong,  arid  a  few  others, — that  they  have  rivalled  the  first 
Apostles ;  and  the  crowd  of  lay  writers,  who  as  vigorously 
proclaim,  in  spite  of  their  sympathy  with  the  missionary 
projects,  that  they  have  utterly  failed,  and  even,  as  a  rule,  have 
proved  most  injurious  to  the  character  and  welfare  of  the 
natives.  We  will  hear  both  classes. 

The    fortieth   report   of    the   Glasgow   Missionary   Society 

*  Vol.  ii.,  app.,  p.  593. 

f  Narrative  of  a  Residence  in  South  Africa,  ch.  i.,  p.  7. 

±  Ch.  vi.,  p.  115. 

§  Acts  of  the  Government  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  1854-7. 

I  P.  309. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  619 

announces  to  the  British  public — or  at  least  to  that  portion  of 
it  who  subscribe  to  such  objects — that  "  religion  was  striking 
its  roots  deeper  and  deeper  in  the  native  soil."  Another  re- 
port says  :  "  Our  missionaries  are  everywhere  scattering  the 
seeds  of  civilization,  social  order,  and  happiness."*  It  need 
hardly  be  said  that  the  various  societies  emulate,  and  indeed 
often  surpass,  this  style  of  narrative. 

Their  agents  also  assist  them  with  materials  for  such  com- 
positions. The  reports  of  Mr.  Moffat — who  seems  to  have 
proposed  to  himself  the  journal  of  Mr.  Morrison,  of  Canton,  as 
his  model — are  worthy  of  particular  attention.  Speaking  of 
the  weekly  assemblies  of  his  Hottentot  dependents,  he  says : 
"  A  delightful  unction  of  the  Spirit  was  realized,  especially  in 
our  Sabbath  convocations."f  If  a  poor  savage,  who  had  bor- 
rowed from  civilization  nothing  but  its  vices,  dies  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  a  "  mission,"  u  his  disembodied  spirit,"  we  are  told, 
"  entered  into  the  realms  of  eternal  rest."  The  singular  favors 
of  what  these  gentlemen  call,  apparently  for  the  sake  of 
euphony,  the  u Triune  Jehovah,"  are  constantly  showered  upon 
the  privileged  Hottentots.  Bloodthirsty  savages,  who  after- 
wards became  the  bitterest  enemies  both  of  England  and  of  her 
missionaries — such  asTzatzoe  and  Africaner,  Pato  and  Macomo 
— are  described,  at  one  time  by  the  London  Missionary  Society, 
as  zealous  in  "diffusing  the  name  of  Christ;"  at  another  by 
Dr.  Philip,  as  "  elevated  to  a  surprising  height  in  the  scale  of 
improvement ;"  or,  by  an  American  society,  as  remarkable  for 
"  an  experimental  acquaintance  with  the  Bible !"  And  vast- 
sums  were  collected  from  wromen  and  children,  both  in  Eng- 
land and  America,  on  the  faith  of  these  representations.  But 
we  shall  perhaps  obtain  a  clearer  view  both  of  the  character  of 
the  missionaries  and  the  results  of  their  labors,  if  we  introduce 
the  witnesses  in  chronological  order ;  the  unvarying  uniformity 
of  their  testimony,  during  fifty  successive  years,  will  not  escape 
the  attention  of  the  intelligent  reader. 

The  introduction  of  Protestant  missions  into  this  part  of 
Africa  appears  to  be  due  to  Yan  Der  Kemp,  whom  Colonel 
Napier  calls  "  the  foundation  stone  of  the  South  African  mis- 
sions," and  who  has  been  celebrated  with  much  applause  in 
missionary  reports.  His  history  exactly  resembles  that  of  Bu- 
chanan, and  other  luminaries  of  the  same  order.  He  became 
a  missionary,  because  every  other  profession  was  closed  against 
him.  He  was  originally,  w*e  are  informed,  a  captain  of  dra- 
goons in  the  Dutch  service,  was  dismissed  from  his  regiment, 
and  then  became  notorious  as  a  professed  atheist.  Ultimately 

*  Researches  in  South  Africa,  by  the  Rev.  John  Philp,  D.  D.;  preface,  p.  9. 
f  Missionary  Labors  in  Southern  Africa,  by  Kobert  Mofiat,  ch.  xi.,  p.  172. 


620  CHAPTER  VII. 

• 

he  found  refuge  in  this  remote  dependency  of  Holland  ;  and 
Liechtenstein,  one  of  his  admirers,  gave,  in  1812,  this  account  of 
his  disciples :  "  They  could  sing  and  pray,  and  be  heartily 
penitent  for  their  sins,  and  talk  of  '  the  Lamb  of  atonement ;' 
but  none  were  really  better  for  all  this  specious  appearance." 
It  was  solely,  he  adds,  the  "convenient  mode  of  getting  them- 
selves fed,"  which  u  attracted  many  of  the  most  worthless 
and  idle  among;  the  people,  and  all  who  applied  were  indis- 
criminately received  into  the  establishment."* 

Van  Der  Kemp  himself  was  accustomed  to  report  of  them 
officially  as  follows  :  "  The  zeal  of  our  converted  Hottentots  is 
evidently  an  extraordinary  gift  of  God's  spirit." 

From  Lichtenstein  we  also  learn  that  both  Yan  Der  Kemp, 
who  now  assumed  the  title  of  "  doctor  of  divinity,"  and  his 
English  colleague,  Mr.  Read, — whom  a  lively  biographer  calls 
"  devoted  heralds  of  mercy," — married  Hottentot  girls  ! — while 
of  another  of  their  company,  famous  as  a  preacher,  the  same 
friendly  witness  relates,  that  u  his  influence  over  the  minds  of 
the  female  part  of  his  flock  was  employed  for  the  base  purpose 
of  seducing  a  young  woman "f 

It  would  be  necessary  to  apologize  for  introducing  such 
details,  if  it  were  possible  for  the  annalist  of  Protestant  mis- 
sions to  avoid  topics  which  form  so  large  a  part  of  their  history. 

Lichtenstein  lived  amongst  these  missionaries,  and  knew 
them  intimately  ;  and  though  he  makes  an  exception  in  favor 
of  the  Moravians,  he  declares  that  "  the  English  and  Dutch 
missionaries,  with  few  exceptions,  were  idle  vagabonds,  or 
senseless  fanatics."  Indeed,  the  language  of  this  traveller,  who 
is  the  earliest  in  date  of  our  witnesses,  is  sometimes  still  more 
energetic ;  for  he  does  not  hesitate  to  call  them  "  a  swarm  of 
idle  missionaries,  who  find  it  more  agreeable  to  be  fed  by  the 
devout  colonists,  than  to  pursue  the  proper  object  for  which 
they  were  sent  out — the  endeavoring  to  instruct  and  civilize  the 
neighboring  savages."  Of  Kicherer,  who  long  shared  with 
Yan  Der  Kemp  the  homage  of  English  Protestants,  and  of 
whose  work  "  so  much  boasting  has  been  made  by  himself  and 
his  friends  in  England,"  Lichtenstein  says:  "The  Bosjemans, 
when  they  found  there  was  nothing  left  to  eat,  hesitated  not  a 
moment  to  apostatize  from  Christianity."^:  Such  is  the  evi- 
dence of  one  who  had  watched  the  work,  and  was  himself  an 
ardent  Protestant,  and  such  the  characteristic  commencement 
of  Protestant  missions  in  South  Africa. 

*  Lichtenstein's  Travels  in  Southern  Africa,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  236  (1812). 

f  Ch.  x.,  p.  144. 

J  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xli.,  p.  183. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  621 

•  Dr.  Sparrman,  a  learned  Swedish  Protestant,  qualifies 
Liechtenstein's  eulogy  of  the  Moravians,  by  relating,  that  Smid, 
one  of  their  number,  "  was  banished  out  of  the  country  of  the 
Hottentots,  for  having  illegally  made  himself  a  chief  among  the 
Hottentots,  in  order  to  enrich  himself  by  their  labor,  and  the 
presents  they  made  him  of  cattle."*  Many  of  the  witnesses, 
however,  seem  disposed  to  contrast  the  Moravians  with  the  other 
missionaries,  apparently  on  account  of  the  greater  simplicity  of 
their  lives,  and  their  habit  of  teaching  mechanical  trades.  Yet 
most,  or  all  of  them  probably,  felt  that  they  had  gained  promo- 
tion by  settling  in  Africa;  for,  as  Mr.  Thompson  remarks,  nearly 
all  of  them  had  "  originally  been  common  mechanics,  "f 

In  1822,  Mr.  Burchell,  an  unexceptionable  witness,  familiar 
by  actual  observation  both  with  the  missionaries  and  their  work, 
writes  as  follows :  "  It  is  much  to  be  lamented  that  the  com- 
munity at  home  are  misled  by  accounts  catching  at  the  most 
trifling  occurrence  for  their  support,  and  showing  none  but 
the  most  favorable  circumstances,  and  even  those  unfairly 
exaggerated."  The  nominal  converts,  he  reports,  listen  to  the 
missionaries  "  as  long  as  it  suits  their  worldly  convenience  and 
advantages."  The  motives  of  the  missionaries  themselves  Mr, 
Burchell  seems  to  have  easily  penetrated.  "  Two  of  them  in 
particular,  as  I  was  informed  at  Klaar water,  had  carried  on  the 
traffic  in  ivory  with  much  success."  Finally,  as  an  example  of 
what  even  the  best  of  their  converts  were  really  worth,  he 
notices  "  the  three  converted  Hottentots"  who  were  taken  to 
England  by  Mr.  Kicherer,  "and  exhibited  as  specimens  of  mis- 
sionary conversion,"^:  and  whose  history  deserves  a  moment's 
attention. 

Nothing  could  exceed  the  enthusiasm  which  they  created 
among  "  the  favorers  of  missionary  labors."  Even  country 
subscribers  were  allowed  an  opportunity  of  seeing  these  selected 
specimens  of  African  Protestantism,  and  of  thus  appreciating  the 
excellent  use  to  which  their  own  contributions  had  been  applied. 
At  length  they  were  withdrawn  from  the  public  gaze,  after 
reciting,  with  surprising  accuracy,  innumerable  texts  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  otherwise  manifesting  to  delighted  audiences  their 
intelligent  zeal  for  the  Protestant  religion.  The  missionary, 
satisfied  with  such  encouraging  success,  reconveyed  his  disciples 
to  Africa,  where  he  took  them  at  first  into  his  house  as  domestic 


*  Voyage  to  the  Gape  of  Good  Hope,  by  Andrew  Sparrman,  M.D.,  ch.  v., 
p.  213. 

f  Travels  in  Southern  Africa,  by  George  Thompson,  Esq.,  vol.,  ii.  ch.  viii., 
p.  91 ;  3d  edition. 

%  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  Southern  Africa,  by  William  J.  Burchell,  Esq., 
vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  155. 


622  CHAPTER  VII. 

servants.  But  the  drama  was  now  played  out,  and  the  curtain 
dropped ;  and  Mr.  Burchell  informs  us,  that  as  they  immediately 
resumed  their  real  character,  proved  to  be  inveterate  drunkards, 
"and  in  other  respects  immoral  and  undeserving,  their  protector 
found  himself  compelled  to  put  them  out  of  his  house."* 

Unfortunately  this  climax  became  known  in  England  ;  and 
the  missionary  society, — displaying  a  tardy  repentance  for  the 
fraud  which  had  been  so  beneficial  to  their  funds, — thought  it 
expedient  to  affirm,  for  the  instruction  of  their  resentful  sub- 
scribers, that  "  the  Hottentots  were  not  brought  to  England  by 
the  desire  of  the  society,  "f  We  need  only  add  that  Mr. 
Kicherer,  whose  indiscretion  had  been  so  profitable  to  "  the 
Society,"  and  probably  to  himself,  ultimately  abandoned  mis- 
sionary work  altogether. 

In  1828,  we  come  to  Dr.  Philip,  the  most  conspicuous  amongst 
the  whole  body  of  missionaries,  and  a  gentleman  whose  pro- 
ceedings, as  recorded  by  himself  or  his  contemporaries,  excite  in 
us — to  speak  frankly — such  overpowering  sentiments  of  repug- 
nance, that  we  must  be  careful  to  express  them  only  in  the 
words  of  others.  Let  us  hear  first  his  account  of  his  converts. 

"  John  Tzatzoe,"  he  tells  us,  "  is  of  great  use  to  Mr.  Brownlee 
in  his  labors;"  and  then  he  shows  that  he  was,  in  fact,  an 
assistant  missionary.  Dr.  Philip,  mindful  perhaps  of  Mr. 
Kicherer's  example,  determined  to  renew  the  experiment. 
Tzatzoe,  in  his  turn,  as  Colonel  Napier  remarks,  "  was  paraded 
at  Exeter  Hall."  At  the  fifty-first  general  meeting  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society,  long  after  he  had  returned  to 
Africa,  where  the  astute  barbarian  revealed  him&elf  in  his  true 
character,  the  following  report  was  gravely  communicated  to 
an  audience  of  whom  the  "  directors"  and  their  "  secretary" 
probably  felt  quite  sure. 

"  John  Tzatzoe  and  the  other  native  assistant  have  made 
extensive  journeys  through  the  year,ybr  the  purpose  of  diffusing 
the  name  of  Christ  and  the  knowledge  of  His  salvation."  Nor 
was  this  all.  A  painting  was  executed,  of  which  engraved 
copies  were  widely  circulated,  in  which  Dr.  Philip  appeared  in 
the  foreground  in  an  impressive  attitude,  and  the  "native 
missionaries,"  with  prayerful  countenances,  in  the  rear.  The 
effect,  as.  is  invariably  the  case  with  such  performances,  was 
triumphant.  It  is  true  that  it  did  not  last  long,  though  prob- 
ably quite  long  enough  to  secure  the  objects  aimed  at.  Tzatzoe, 
says  Colonel  Napier,  "  who  excited  such  ill-directed  sympathy 
in  England,  appeared  foremost  in  arms  against  us  during  the 

*  Trawls  in  the  Interior  of  Southern  Africa,  by  William  J.  Burchell,  Esq., 
vol  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  155. 
f  Missionary  Transactions,  vol.  ii.,  introd.,  p.  5. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  623 

late  Kaffir  war."*  And  Mrs.  Ward  adds,  that  when  she  saw 
the  report  of  the  missionary  society  above  quoted,  "My  first 
impulse  was  to  laugh,  knowing  that  Tzatzoe,  the  propagator  of 
Christianity  in  1845,  has  been  foremost  in  the  mischief  of  1846  ; 
but  it  is  melancholy  to  think  how  we  have  been  imposed  upon" 
A  little  later  this  lady  adds,  "  The  British  public  was  com- 
pletely imposed  upon  by  this  savage  heathen,  for  such  he  is,  was, 
and  ever  will  be."f  In  the  able  reports  of  the  London  Mis- 
sionary Society  he  was  wholly  absorbed,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
works  of  piety,  and  in  "diffusing  the  knowledge  of  salvation." 

It  is  certainly  worthy  of  observation,  if  we  had  leisure  to 
dwell  upon  such  details,  that  the  arts  practised  by  English 
missionary  societies  havebeen  frankly  compared,  even  by  friend- 
ly voices,  to  the  unhandsome  "  shifts"  of  traders  and  attorneys. 
Their  operations,  we  are  assured,  exactly  resemble,  except  in 
their  ostensible  object,  those  of  commercial  associations  of  the 
meaner  class.  "  So  mercantile  houses,"  says  a  well-known 
Anglican  clergyman,  "  take  more  pains  to  solicit  orders  than  do 
the  '  societies ;'  "  of  which,  he  adds,  "  some  are  simply  large 
trading  firms,  dealing  with  the  money  of  others."  Even  their 
"  balance-sheets,"  the  same  authority  declares,  being  designed 
rather  to  hide  than  to  reveal  the  real  distribution  of  their 
revenues,  are  not  only  "  very  often  intentionally  delusive,"  but 
exhibited  "  in  several  the  existence  of  a  system  of  deliberate 
fraud"\  The  facts  already  noticed,  and  which  we  will  now 
resume,  appear  to  indicate  that  the  same  spirit  inspires  all  their 
operations,  in  England,  in  Africa,  and  every  where,  else. 

Another  distinguished  "  convert,"  who  was  for  some  time  a 
sure  source  of  income  to  the  societies,  was  Africaner,  who,  in 
the  eloquent  report  of  Dr.  Philip,  was  "elevated  to  a  surprising 
height  in  the  scale  of  improvement."  This  account  of  him  was 
forwarded  even  to  America,  where,  however,  it  was  deemed  too 
tame  to  be  safely  submitted  to  audiences  accustomed  to  the 
more  violent  forms  of  religious  excitement.  In  the  United 
States,  therefore,  Dr.  Philip's  eulogy  of  his  pupil  was  published 
in  the  improved  and  expanded  statement,  that  "  he  was  of 
undissembled  piety,  and  much  experimental  acquaintance  with 
his  Bible."§ 

The  real  history  of  Africaner  is  less  attractive.  He  was 
'originally  one  of  the  flock  of  a  certain  Mr.  Ebner,  who  candidly 

*  Excursions  in  Southern  Africa,  by  Lieut.-col.  E.  Elers  Napier,  vol.  ii., 
ch.  xiv.,  p.  275. 

f  Five  Years  in  Kaffir  Land,  by  Mrs.  Harriet  Ward,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  116 ; 
ch.  x.,  p.  277  (1848). 

\  S.  G.  O.,  The  Times,  January  17,  1860. 

|  Life  of  Africaner,  by  the  American  Sunday-school  Union,  p.  23. 


624:  CHAPTER   VII. 

described  his  own  disciples  to  Mr.  Moffat  as  "  a  wicked,  sus- 
picious, and  dangerous  people,  baptized  as  well  as  uribaptized."* 
And  apparently  Mr.  Ebner  was  the  only  person  not  deluded  by 
him,  nor  anxious  to  delude  others.  Africaner,  who  manifested 
such  undissembled  piety,  became,  like  Tzatzoe,  one  of  the  most 
dangerous  adversaries  of  the  very  missionaries  whose  schemes 
he  had  unconsciously  served,  and  "  a  bitter  opponent,"  as  Mr. 
Francis  Galton  relates,  of  their  work.f 

But  if  Dr.  Philip  habitually  represented  wicked  and  treach- 
erous savages,  such  as  Tzatzoe  and  Africaner,  as  devout  Chris- 
tians and  valuable  assistant  missionaries,  and  his  employers 
willingly  profited  by  the  fraud,  there  are  not  wanting  grave  and 
responsible  witnesses  to  inform  us — they  have  already  declared 
it  before  the  British  Parliament — that  it  was  he  who  stimulated 
them,  for  his  own  purposes,  to  the  very  excesses  which  cost  so 
much  blood  and  treasure,  and  which  even  a  British  army  had 
some  difficulty  in  chastising.  It  was  his  object  to  gain  influence 
over  them  at  the  expense  of  the  British  government,  and  there- 
fore, says  Colonel  Wade,  he  "  drove  the  Kaffirs  to  outrageous 
proceedings  and  depredations."^:  Sir  Benjamin  d'Urban,  also, 
though  well  affected  to  the  missionaries,  reported  officially  to 
Lord  Glenelg,  that  "  among  the  causes  of  the  Kaffir  invasion 
was  the  injudicious  and  most  dangerous  tampering  with  their 
discontents,  practised  (doubtless  without  intention  of  mischiev- 
ous consequences)  by  Dr.  Philip,  of  the  London  mission,  and 
his  subordinate  partisans."  And  then  he  distinctly  charges 
this  person  that  "he  never  apprized  the  governor"  that  the 
Kaffirs  were  about  to  "  shed  blood,"  though  he  was  perfectly 
cognizant  of  their  intention. § 

But  enough  of  such  a  "  missionary"  as  this,  who  is  obliged 
to  confess  that  Lord  Howden,  another  African  official,  reported 
"  that  the  disinclination  to  increase  or  even  maintain  the  mis- 
sionary institutions  already  established  in  the  colony,  is  almost 
universal  /"  and  that  in  reluctantly  consenting  to  the  continu- 
ance of  the  seditious  "mission"  at  Klaarwater,  he  expressed 
the  hope  that  it  might  become  "something  better  than  the 
refuge  of  many  wicked  and  disorderly  persons  who  are  obliged 
to  fly  from  justice." || 

it  would  occupy  too  much  space  to  trace  the  gradual  modi- 
fication in  the  tone  of  the  home  reports,  in  consequence  of  the 
unwelcome  statements  of  officials  and  travellers,  which 

*  Moffat,  ch.  viii.,  p.  103. 

f  Journal  of  Geographical  Society,  vol.  xxii.,  p.  142. 

t  Parliamentary  Papers,  July,  1835,  vol.  vii.,  p.  373. 

S  lUd.,  1837,  vol.  xliii.,  p.  380. 

jf  Researches,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  370 ;  and  vol.  ii.,  app.,  p.  382. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  625 

began  to  reach  England,  and  suggested  to  directors  and  secre- 
taries the  necessity  of  caution.  A  single  example  will  show 
into  what  language  these  unexpected  revelations  were  cautious- 
ly translated,  in  order  to  produce  the  least  possible  shock  upon 
their  subscribers.  Of  one  of  the  very  worst  cases,  where  the 
native  disciples  had  become1  notorious  throughout  the  colony 
for  idleness  and  profligacy,  Dr.  Smith  observes :  "  The  direct- 
ors"— who  could  not  afford  to  put  out?  too  gloomy  a  view  of  the 
character  of  their  pensioners — "lament  the  prevalence  of  a 
Laodicean  spirit  among  the  greater  part  of  them."*  To  have 
said  that  the  so-called  Christian  natives  were  wallowing  in  vice 
under  the  very  eye  of  the  missionaries,  might  have  compromised 
the  annual  revenue;  so  they  were  only  affected  by  "  a  Laodicean 
spirit." 

In  1827,  Mr.  Thompson,  a  well-known  African  traveller, 
accidentally  reveals,  evidently  from  inadvertence,  the  prudent 
inaccuracy  of  his  missionary  friends,  and  exposes  the  real 
character  of  those  well-known  "  reports,"  in  which  there  was 
often  nothing  authentic  but  the  date  and  the  signature.  None 
have  surpassed,  few  have  equalled,  Mr.  Moffat,  of  whose 
"Sabbath  convocations"  we  have  already  heard.  Mr.  Thomp- 
son became  the  guest  of  this  gentleman,  and  having  ventured, 
with  the  blunt  frankness  of  a  traveller,  to  express  his  surprise 
at  the  scanty  attendance  of  the  natives  in  chapel, — whom  Mr. 
Moffat  had  described  officially  as  attending  in  crowds, — re- 
ceived this  hasty  and  unguarded  confession  :  '"At  no  time,  the 
missionaries  told  me,  has  the  attendance  been  considerable" 
Mr.  Thompson  adds,  at  a  later  date,  after  personal  examina- 
tion, "  Few  or  no  converts  have  been  made !  f 

In  1829,  Mr.  Oowper  Rose — our  witnesses  are  all  ardent 
Protestants — contents  himself  with  protesting  against  the  popu- 
lar delusion,  that  u  the  missionary  is  a  man  who  has  taken  up 
the  cross,  and  renounced  all  that  the  worldly-minded  seek." 
And  then  he  notices  their  "  convenient  habitations,"  and  their 
"  wives  and  families,"  and  the  fact  which  continually  met  his 
observation,  that  they  were  "not  deprived  of  social  enjoy- 
ments.":): 

In  1835,  we  have  the  important  evidence  of  Mr.  Moodie,  a 
particularly  moderate  and  careful  writer,  who  spent  ten  years 
in  Africa,  and  visited  the  numerous  missionary  stations  with 
warm  interest  and  sympathy,  which  only  painful  experience 
was  able  to  extinguish. 


*  Hist&ry  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  vol.  ii.,  p.  182. 

f  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  193. 

i  Four  Tears  in  Southern  Africa,  Letter  vi.,  p.  188. 

40 


CHAPTER   VII. 

For  more  than  thirty  years  the  missionaries  had  now  been 
at  their  work,  without  let  or  hindrance,  and  Mr.  Moodie  will 
assist  us  to  appreciate  accurately  all  that  they  had  accomplished 
during  that  long  period,  in  which  one  generation  had  already 
passed  away.  Of  the  Moravians,  who  are  usually  preferred  by 
other  writers,  because  they  generally  content  themselves  with 
following  the  trade  or  calling  which  they  had  pursued  at  home, 
he  speaks  thus  :  "I  have, generally  found  the  Hottentots  who 
have  come  from  the  Moravian  stations  more  improvident  and 
lazy  than  those  who  come  from  other  missionary  institutions," 
— which  he  attributes  to  their  "  obliging  the  Hottentots  to  de- 
posit all  their  earnings  in  their  custody."* 

Sometimes  he  speaks  of  individual  missionaries,  and  here  is 
an  example.  Mr.  S.,  missionary  at  Laure  Brack,  being  in  re- 
duced circumstances,  "  had  taken  up  the  trade  of  an  instructor 
of  the  heathen."  He  first  made  the  Hottentots  build  him  a 
house,  u  for  which  they  were  not  paid ;"  then  got  them  "  to 
labor  for  months  in  leading  out  a  spring  of  water  from  a  ravine 
in  the  mountain,  to  irrigate  a  strip  of  rich  land  :  this  he  kindly 
allowed  them  to  clear  from  brushwood,  and  bring  into  cultiva- 
tion on  their  own  account  for  a  year  or  two ;  and  then,  the 
moment  the  principal  difficulties  were  overcome,  he  very  coolly 
appropriated  the  ground  to  his  own  use,  without  giving  them 
any  remuneration  for  their  labor."  He  adds,  that  "Mr.  S.  was 
allowed  to  remain  for  many  years  to  tyrannize  over  this  hapless 
people.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  appearance  of  wretchedness 
in  the  institution."  Finally,  "his  misdeeds,  I  am  happy  to 
say,  have  at  last  occasioned  his  expulsion. "f 

Again:  "At  all  the  missionary  stations  in  Kaffreland,!  could 
not  help  remarking  the  gloomy  and  desponding  expression 
which  pervaded  the  countenances  of  the  people ;  .  .  .  .  we 
cannot  for  a  moment  suppose  that  this  could  be  the  effect  of 
true  religion."  And  then  he  shows  how  the  unnatural  gloom 
of  the  whole  system,  and  the  ftmatical  denunciation  of  the 
most  "  innocent  amusements," — which  these  teachers  seem  to 
regard  as  the  essential  tenet  of  Christianity, — fully  accounts 
for  "  the  general  disinclination  of  the  Kaffres  for  the  Christian 
religion."  And  finally  he  observes,  that  "  as  most  of  the  mis- 
sionaries must  be  fully  aware  of  the  total  inadequacy  of  the 
system  hitherto  pursued,  they  should  confess  the  truth,  instead 
of  flattering  the  hopes  of  their  employers  by  sanguine,  if  not 
exaggerated  statements  of  their  progress.":): 

*  Ten  Years  in  South  Africa,  by  Lieut.  J.  D.  W.  Moodie,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  83. 

f  Vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  94. 

J  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  pp.  280-283. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  227 

There  is  much  more  in  Mr.  Hoodie's  sensible  work  which 
illustrates  the  real  character  of  Protestant  missions  to  the 
heathen,  but  we  must  hasten  to  hear  others.  "The  improve- 
ment which  has  been  effected,"  he  says,  in  any  measure,  and 
in  particular  places,  "the  missionaries  must  well  know  is 
chiefly  to  be  attributed  to  causes  over  which  they  have  no  con- 
trol."  Again :  "  I  have  often  been  surprised  to  find  that 
natives  who  bore  the  very  worst  character  among  the  farmers, 
and  had  conducted  themselves  very  badly  in  my  own  service, 
were  considered  quite  '  saints'  at  the  missionary  stations,  where 
they  find  it  their  interest  to  assume  the  greatest  sanctity  of 
demeanor."  "I  believe  their  system  to  be  radically  bad, 
and  productive  of  the  worst  consequences  as  respects  the 
interests  and  improvement  of  all  classes  of  the  community." 
And  finally,  he  sums  up  in  these  grave  words  the  results  of 
missionary  teaching  :  "  It  is  notorious  to  all  the  colonists,  that 
the  Hottentots  who  have  resided  for  any  time  at  the  missionary 
stations  are  generally  the  most  idle  and  worthless  of  their 
nation"* 

In  July  of  the  same  year,  1835,  various  witnesses  were  ex- 
amined before  Parliamentary  Committees  on  the  results  of  Prot- 
estant missions  in  South  Africa.  "  Do  you  think  that  the  mis- 
sionaries have  improved  the  character  of  the  Kaffirs  ?"  was  a 
question  addressed  to  Captain  Aitchison,  who  had  lived  long 
amongst  them.  "Not  in  the  least"  was  his  reply  ;  "  with  the 
exception  of  Kama,  and  one  or  two  of  his  tribe,  I  have  not  seen 
the  slightest  improvement  by  the  missionaries  among  them  : 
in  fact,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Chumie,  where  the  great  mis- 
sionary station  is,  they  are  the  worst  behaved  Kaffirs  of  the 
whole  tribe."^ 

Major  Dundas  reported  on  the  same  occasion,  "I  believe 
they  have  hardly  christianized  a  single  individual ;":(;  and  we 
shall  find  this  admitted  to  be  true,  even  by  missionaries,  twenty 
years  later. 

Sir  Harry  Smith,  an  ardent  advocate  of  extreme  Protestant 
opinions,  observed,  that  "  the  house  of  the  Eev.  Mr.  Brownlee," 
—whom  he  calls  "  an  exemplary  man,  who  had  resided  years 
with  these  people," — "'was  burnt  to  the  ground,  and  shortly 
after  that  of  every  other  missionary,  except  the  Chumie  and 
Burn's  Hill,  which  were  ransacked."  And  the  Rev.  William 
Culmers,  of  Chumie,  confessed  that,  after  so  many  years,  they 
had  not  acquired  the  slightest  influence  with  the  natives,  when 
he  said,  "An  angry  look  just  now  would  be  enough  to  send  all 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  292. 

f  Parliamentary  Papers,  July,  1835,  vol.  vii.,  p.  12. 

|  Ibid.,  p.  142. 


228  CHAPTER   VII. 

the  missionaries  into  eternity."*  At  Burn's  Hill  they  were 
rescued  by  the  military,  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  the  mis- 
sionaries themselves ;  some  of  whom  afterwards  protested, 
when  the  danger  was  past,  that  they  had  never  been  in  the 
least  danger  amongst  their  attached  flocks  If 

In  one  of  the  later  Kaffir  wars,  that  of  1850,  a  still  more 
characteristic  fact  occurred,  and  one  which  shows,  that  as  the 
Negro- Anglican  "  converts"  at  Sierra  Leone  were  at  the  same 
time  "  communicants"  and  "  obstinate"  followers  of  native 
superstitions ;  so  in  South  Africa,  the  same  class  exhibit  an 
equally  remarkable  duality  of  profession.  At  a  place  called  the 
"  Shilo  Missionary  Institution,"  "  the  church,  or  missionary 
chapel,  was  held  most  resolutely  by  the  enemy,  garrisone'd 
chiefly  by  those  very  Hottentots  who,  not  a  month  previously, 
had  received  the  Holy  Sacrament  within  its  walls.";}: 

In  1837,  Sir  James  Alexander,  though  favorable  to  missionary 
schemes,  says  of  the  missionaries,  "  Little  care  is  taken  at  home 
in  the  selection  of  the  instruments ;"  and  of  the  missionary 
schools,  "  Schools  of  idleness  they  are,  instead  of  schools  of 
industry,  as  they  ought  to  be,"  in  which  "  the  Hottentots  were 
kept  in  a  state  of  pupilage,  immorality,  and  concubinage. r§ 

In  1839,  Mr.  Bannister,  a  member  of  the  Aborigines  Pro- 
tection Society,  says :  "  Missionaries  have  for  the  most  part 
proved  themselves  incapable  of  protecting  the  natives  politi- 
cally, or  of  improving  them  so  rapidly  that  they  might  become 
their  own  protectors.  '| 

In  1842,  we  come  to  Mr.  Moffat,  and  to  his  account  of  mis- 
sionary labors  in  South  Africa.  If  this  gentleman  announces 
in  animated  phrase  his  own  continual  triumphs,  he  at  least 
permits  no  such  pretensions  on  the  part  of  his  colleagues  and 
friends.  Of  Mr.  Edmunds  he  tells  us,  that  he  abandoned  the 
work  owing  to  "  an  insurmountable  aversion  on  his  part  to  the 
people."Tf  His  companion,  Mr.  Ebner,  as  we  have  already 
heard,  deplored  the  wickedness  of  his  flock,  "  baptized  as  well 
as  unbaptized."  Of  a  tribe  of  Kamaquas,  "  which  had  long 

*  Vol.  xliii.,  pp.  359,  371. 

f  The  Mr.  Brownlee  mentioned  above  reports  as  follows,  in  1862,  to  the 
London  Missionary  Society,  of  his  own  disciples.  "  We  have  some  degree  of 
confidence  in  viewing  them  as  epistles  known  and  read  of  all  men.  Some  have 
departed,  both  from  among  the  Hottentots  and  Kaffirs,  giving  Christian  evi- 
dence of  being  prepared  for  glory,  and  longing  to  be  with  Christ.  Report,  p, 
74.  Such  language  defies  comment. 

\  Narrative  of  the  Kaffir  War  of  1850-1,  by  R.  Godlonton,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  215. 

§  Voyage  Among  the  Colonies  of  W.  Africa,  by  Sir  James  E.  Alexander, 
K.L.S.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  402  ;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  75. 

jj  Memoir  respecting  the  Colonization  of  Natal,  by  S.  Bannister,  Esq.,  Member 
of  the  Aborigines  Protection  Society  ;  preface,  p.  10. 

*§  Missionary  Labors,  &c.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  27. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  629 

enjoyed  the  instructions  of  missionaries,"  he  says,  "  They  had 
not  the  least  idea  of  a  God  or  a  future  state.  They  were  literal- 
ly like  the  beasts  which  perish."*  Again,  of  Mr.  Edwards  and 
Mr.  Cox,  two  Protestant  missionaries,  who  "  settled  in  the 
Bechuana  country,  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  preaching  the 
Gospel  to  the  natives,"  he  gives  this  account :  They  took  to 
farming  and  trading,  and  "  on  this  rock  these  men  appear  to 
have  struck,  and  both  were  wrecked."  "  Edwards,"  Mr. 
Moffat  adds, "  is  now,  or  was  some  years  since,  a  hoary-headed 
infidel."f  His  own  interpreter,  also,  "brought  home  a  con- 
cubine with  him,  and  apostatizing,  became  an  enemy  to  the 
mission."  "  Mr.  Evans  relinquished  the  mission  altogether." 
Of  the  natives  generally  he  confesses,  that  they  were  "  sensible 
only  of  the  temporal  benefits  enjoyed  by  those  who  have  re- 
ceived the  Gospel.":): 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Moffat,  though  he  does  full 
justice  to  himself,  is  at  least  perfectly  candid  in  his  estimate  of 
others.  It  is  only  necessary  to  add,  that  they,  in  their  turn, 
speak  with  equal  frankness  of  him.  Thus,  the  feev.  Dr.  Brown, 
alluding  to  Moffat's  florid  narratives,  says  bluntly,  "  Of  these 
awakenings,  we  confess,  we  entertain  great  doubts."  And 
again  :  "  Flourishing  accounts  were  at  different  periods  given 
of  the  progress  of  religion,  but  some  of  those  accounts  were 
probably  much  exaggerated,  while  others  were  founded  on  mis- 
taken judgments."§  Mr.  Freeman  also,  a  secretary  of  the  Lon- 
don Missionary  Society,  confessed  nine  years  later ^  after  a  visit  to 
Kolobeng,  which  had  so  long  enjoyed  Mr.  Moffat's  presence, 
"  The  whole  mission- work  of  the  station  is  quite  in  an  incipient 
state"  And  then,  as  he  was  not  speaking  of  operations  in 
which  he  had  any  personal  share,  he  proposes  this  candid 
question :  How  far  is  a  missionary  justified  "  in  remaining  with 
a  heathen  people,  when,  though  they  are  glad  of  his  presence, 
from  the  shield  it  serves  to  throw  around  them  in  their  civil 
and  political  condition,  they  not  only  do  not  embrace  the 
Gospel  which  he  preaches,  out  resist  and  oppose,  and  scarcely 
ever  come  to  him  ?"|  Mr.  Moffat  should  have  remembered, 
when  he  wrote  home  about  "  the  unction  of  the  Spirit  realized 
in  our  Sabbath  convocations,"  that  in  these  days  people  travel 
far  and  fast,  and  almost  always  publish  an  account  of  their 
travels  when  they  are  ended. 


*  Ch.  ix.,  p.  124. 
f  Ch.  xiv.,  pp.  215,  216. 
J  Ch.  xxxiii.,  p.  608. 

$  History  of  the  Propagation  of  Christianity  among  the  Heathen,  vol.  ii, 
p.  239, 

|  Tour  in  S.  Africa,  by  J.  J.  Freeman,  ch.  xii.,  p.  291. 


630  CHAPTER  VII. 

In  1844,  Mr.  Backhouse,  who  was  apparently  a  preacher, 
and  whose  work  is  a  painful  specimen  of  complacent  fanaticism, 
was  obliged  to  admit,  with  respect  to  South  Africa,  "  the 
little  that  has  been  effected,  as  well  as  the  tardiness  of  its 
progress."* 

In  1848, — for  lapse  of  time  brings  no  change,  and  after  half 
a  century  of  barren  effort  not  the  slightest  sign  of  improvement 
is  recorded, — Mr.  Bunbury,  a  scientific  Protestant  traveller, 
thus  remarks  on  the  pretended  influence  of  the  missionaries 
among  the  Kaffirs:  "Yet  it  is  certain,  that  in  the  present  out- 
break the  Kaffirs  have  shown  themselves  far  more  powerful 
and  formidable,  and  at  the  same  time  have  displayed  a  more 
sanguinary  and  merciless  spirit,  than  at  any  former  time.  The 
task  of  reclaiming  and  civilizing  these  people  is  evidently  not 
to  be  accomplished  by  missionaries  alone."f 

In  the  following  year,  1849,  we  have  the  testimony  of  Colonel 
Napier  to  the  same  facts  which  so  many  other  equally  capable 
and  impartial  witnesses  have  already  attested.  "Notwith- 
standing those  flaming  accounts  which  have  been  published  to 
the  contrary,"  this  distinguished  officer  says,  "  it  is  notorious, 
it  is  a  fact  which  cannot  be  contradicted,  that  all  attempts  to 
convert  the  Kaffir  race  have  hitherto  proved  complete  failures." 
It  is  just  the  history  of  China,  India,  Ceylon,  and  Australia 
over  again.  "Kaffirs,  Koran rias,  and  Bushmen,  spite  of  the 
falsely  asserted  success  of  missionary  labor,  are  still  in  a  state 
of  most  brutalized  ignorance,  as  regards  religion  or  worship  of 
any  description." 

Of  the  Hottentots,  he  says :  "  Their  Christianity  consists  in 
that  love  of  idleness,  and  a  lazy,  useless  state  of  existence,  which 
they  so  fully  enjoy  at  those  establishments  formed  by  their  #02'- 
disant  spiritual  instructors."  Their  natural  vices,  he  affirms, 
u  are  shamefully  countenanced  and  encouraged  at  most  of  the 
missionary  establishments  within  the  limits  of  the  colony  ;" 
which,  he  adds,  u  are  hotbeds  of  laziness,  and  have  moreover,  in 
many  cases,  been  converted  into  nurseries  for  harboring  desert- 
ers and  vagabonds  of  every  description."  It  is  here,  Colonel 
Napier  reports,  as  Sir  B.  D' Urban  and  others  had  already  done, 
that  "  discontent  and  suspicion,  and  in  some  instances  open 
rebellion,"  are  fostered  "by  men  professing  to  disseminate 
among  the  heathen  the  holy  truths  of  the  Gospel."  And 
then  he  complains,  with  natural  indignation,  that  "  drunken 
ruffians,"  such  as  Macorno,  Fato,  and  others,  should  be  repre- 


*  Visit  to  the  Mauritius  and  8.  Africa,  by  James  Backhouse,  app.,  p.  51. 
f  Journal  of  a  Residence  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  by  Charles  J.  F.  Bun- 
bury,  F.L.S,  ch.  xi.,  p.  255. 


MISSIONS  IN  AFRICA.  631 

sen  ted  by  the  missionaries,  with  the  most  unworthy  objects,  "  as 
converts  to  Christianity."  Finally,  after  describing  the  mis- 
sionaries u  as  men  sallying  forth  to  convert  the  heathen  with  a 
Bible  in  one  hand,  and  a  Hottentot  '  vrouw'  in  the  other,"  he 
thus  appreciates,  in  the  same  sentence,  the  teachers  and  their 
disciples :  "The  Hottentots  are  more  drunken  and  dissolute  than 
ever,  and  some  reverend  personages  have  not — to  their  shame 
be  it  said — set  them  the  most  rigorous  examples  of  morality."* 

If  we  still  multiply  evidence  which,  during  fifty  years,  we 
have  found  to  be  absolutely  uniform,  and  which,  proceeding 
exclusively  from  Protestants,  effectively  illustrates  the  real 
character  of  a  religion  of  which  these  are  the  unvarying  fruits 
in  every  land,  it  is  only  in  order  that  its  weight  and  volume 
may  bear  some  proportion  to  the  mass  of  prejudice  and  igno- 
rance which  it  may  possibly  assist  to  remove.  For  this  reason, 
let  us  continue  the  chain  of  witnesses  down  to  the  present  hour, 
and  the  next,  in  1851,  is  the  Rev.  Gustavus  Hines,  who  thus 
describes  the  influence  of  his  brethren  in  South  Africa. 

"  Large  numbers  had  professed  to  be  converted,  but  very  few 
had  continued  for  any  length  of  time  to  give  evidence  of  a 
genuine  change  of  heart.  Indeed,  it  appears  to  be  the  case  in 
Africa,  as  well  as  in  other  heathen  countries,  that  it  is  much 
easier  to  get  the  people  converted  than  it  is  to  keep  them  so!"f 
And  in  the  same  year  an  English  writer,  not  less  favorably 
disposed  than  Mr.  Hines  towards  the  missionaries,  makes  the 
same  revelations  as  all  the  other  witnesses,  both  about  them 
and  their  converts.  Of  the  first  he  deplores  that  they  should 
"  put  down  every  thing  that  is  pleasant,  connect  the  devil  with 
the  most  innocent  enjoyments,  and  make  hymn-singing  the 
only  overt  act  of  hilarity ;"  while  of  the  last  he  says,  "  Any 
thing  more  dreary  and  uncomfortable  than  a  converted  savage 
I  have  never  seen  in  the  form  of  humanity."  And  then  he 
gives  a  specimen  of  one  who  had  been  taught  to  sing  about 
"  the  sufferings  of  the  Lamb,"  but  who  "  attached  no  meaning 
to  the  words,  and  knew  no  more  about  the  Lamb,  or  His  suf- 
ferings, than  one  of  the  lower  animals.":): 

In  1852,  Mr.  Cole,  after  five  years  of  personal  observation, 
thus  confirms  all  his  predecessors.  "  Out  of  every  hundred 
Hottentot  Christians  (so  called),  I  will  venture  to  declare,  that 
ninety-nine  are  utterly  ignorant  of  any  correct  notion  of  a 
future  state.  I  speak  from  experience.  I  have  frequently 

*  Excursions  in  Southern  Africa,  introd.,  p.  10 ;  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  58 ;  ch.  vii., 
p.  Ill  ;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  442. 

f  Life,  on  the  Plains  of  the  Pacific,  ch  xv.,  p.  308.  Cf.  Sketches  of  the  Caffrt 
Tribes,  1851. 

J  To  the  Mauritius  and  back,  ch.  v.,  p.  197. 


632  CHAPTER   VII. 

been  by  the  bedside  of  the  sick  and  dying  Hottentot,  who  has 
been  a  constant  attendant  at  some  missionary  chapel,  and  I 
have  asked  him  whether  he  had  any  fear  of  dying  ?  He  has 
smiled,  and  said, 

"'None.' 

"  I  have  asked  him  whether  he  expects  to  go  to  heaven  ? 
and  he  has  answered — 

"  <  No.' 

"  Where,  then  ? 

"<  No  where.' 

"  This  I  have  heard,  over  and  over  again,  from  the  lips  of 
some  of  the  '  pet'  Christians  of  missionaries." 

Is  it  possible  to  desire  a  more  impressive  demonstration  of 
the  incurable  impotence  of  Protestantism  ? 

Like  all  the  other  witnesses,  Mr.  Cole  explains  the  fact  that 
many  Hottentots  call  themselves  "  Christians"  by  the  "  great 
pecuniary  advantage"  which  they  derive  from  the  profession. 
He  also,  like  Lichtenstein  and  Burehell,  and  Moodie  and 
Napier,  and  the  rest,  declares  that  "it  is  notorious  that  the 
people  living  at  the  missionary  stations  are  the  idlest  and  most 
useless  set  of  people  in  the  colony  ;"  while  at  some  of  them,  he 
adds,  "  promiscuous  intercourse  between  the  sexes  was  winked 
at,  if  not  absolutely  sanctioned."* 

In  1853,  Mr.  Galton  explains,  like  Mr.  Cole,  the  motive  of 
the  missionary  in  still  continuing  his  unprofitable  career.  "The 
missionary  is,"  he  says,  "  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  lord  para- 
mount of  the  place."f  And  considering  the  purpose  with  which 
most  of  them  undertake  the  work,  and  the  principles  upon 
which  they  conduct  it,  there  is  nothing  in  this  to  surprise  iis. 
A  well-known  German  traveller,  who  sailed  with  one  ot'  them  to 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  exclaims,  "  What  is  to  be  expected 
from  such  a  man  ?  He  began  the  voyage  with  a  falsehood.  He 
had  assured  the  committee  he  had  no  children,  yet  came  on 
board  with  a  child,  and  his  wife  was  daily  expecting  anotlier."f 

In  1854:,  we  have  the  evidence  of  Archdeacon  Merriman, 
whose  frank  and  genial  style  can  hardly  fail  to  attract  the 
sympathy  of  his  readers,  as  his  character  seems  to  have  won  that 
of  his  friends.  "The  Keformed  Church  of  England,"  this 
gentleman  observes,  judging  it  by  its  proceedings  in  Africa, 
k4has  yet  to  learn  the  elements  of  real  systematic  mission  work." 
With  equal  candor,  he  rebukes  "  the  exaggerated  accounts 
of  missionaries,"  of  whom  he  does  not  appear  to  have  formed  a 
high  estimate.  Excepting  certain  "  foreign"  missionaries,  he 

*  The  Gape  and  the  Kafirs,  &c  ,  by  Alfred  W.  Cole,  ch.  viii.,  p.  145. 
f  Tropical  South  Africa,  by  Francis  Galton,  Esq.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  29. 
|  The  Last  Travels  of  Ida  Pfeiffer,  ch.  v.,  p.  75  (1861). 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  633 

says,  "  Not  a  few  South  African  missionaries  seem  to  quit  the 
employment  as  soon  as  an  opening  occurs  either  to  farm 
advantageously,  or  to  enter  the  employ  of  the  government.  / 
meet  with  examples  of  this  wherever  I  go" 

The  true  missionaries  of  the  Cross,  from  the  time  of  St.  Paul 
to  our  own,  have  always  died  at  their  work,  by  martyrdom,  by 
toil,  by  disease,  or  by  old  age.  They  do  not  "  retire  upon  their 
property,"  like  the  Anglican  missionaries  in  New  Zealand  ;  nor 
upon  a  pension,  like  those  in  India ;  they  never  "  cease  to  call 
themselves  missionaries,"  like  Mr.  Gutzlaff,  Mr.  Kicherer,  and 
their  fellows ;  still  less  do  they  take  to  farming,  banking,  or 
other  modes  of  augmenting  their  imperceptible  resources.  They 
give  much  to  the  world,  but  they  borrow  nothing  from  it, 
except  the  grave  in  which,  after  having  confessed  "  a  good  con- 
fession before  many  witnesses,"*  they  lie  down  in  peace,  ex- 
pecting the  day  of  account. 

Mr.  Merriman  seems  to  forget  his  own  exception  in  favor  of 
"  foreign"  emissaries,  when  he  afterwards  relates  of  the  "  French 
mission  stations,"  that  uthe  missionaries  are  extensively  en- 
gaged in  farming  on  their  private  account."  Dr.  Hawks  does 
not  increase  our  esteem  for  the  same  class  when  he  notices  the 
rumor,  "  that  the  Caffres  have  been  instructed  in  the  art  of  war 
by  a  French  missionary  settled  among  them,  who  passed  his 
early  life  in  the  army."f 

Another  singular  fact  which  Mr.  Merriman  mentions,  agrees 
with  Mr.  Godlonton's  account  of  a  parallel  occurrence.  Of 
certain  rebels,  who  acted  with  great  ferocity  against  the  English, 
he  says,  "These  men  had  all  partaken  of  the  Holy  Communion 
together  the  Sunday  previous !"  Anglican  communicants  in 
the  colonies  do  not  seem  to  be  of  a  high  class. 

Lastly,  Mr.  Merriman,  who  seems  to  have  been  everywhere 
distressed  and  embarrassed  by  what  he  calls  "  our  hateful 
religious  disunion,"  relates  how  he  tried  to  prevent  its  evil 
effects  upon  the  heathen.  He  was,  on  a  certain  occasion,  about 
to  preach  from  a  wagon,  just  as  a  Wesleyan  missionary  had 
taken  up  a  rival  position  under  a  neighboring  hedge.  A 
prompt  resolution  saved  appearances.  The  next  moment  the 
savages  would  have  seen  Protestantism  under  an  unfavorable 
aspect,  but  a  rapid  colloquy  was  followed  by  a  reluctant  truce, 
and  Mr.  Merriman  offered  to  read  Anglican  prayers  while  the 
other  should  give  a  Wesleyan  sermon.  The  compromise  was 
accepted,  and  for  the  first  time  a  pagan  audience  was  persuaded 
to  believe  in  the  unity  of  Protestantism. 

*  Tim.  vi.  12. 

f  American  Expedition  under  Commodore  Perry,  by  Francis  L.  Hawks, 
D.D.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  103. 


634  CHAPTER  VII. 

It  is  curious,  however,  that  a  little  later  we  find  this  Anglican 
Archdeacon,  who  was  far  from  being  elated  by  so  questionable 
a  triumph,  envying  even  the  Dutch  Calvinists  in  South  Africa 
on  this  ground,  that  at  least  they  all  professed  the  same  heresies. 
"Ten  times  the  number  of  English,"  he  observes,  "could  not 
do,  in  consequence  of  their  religious  divisions,  what  the  Dutch 
so  easily  achieve."* 

In  1855,  a  more  remarkable  witness  appears,  and  one  who 
will  assist  us  to  comprehend  not  only  the  failure  of  Protestant- 
ism to  impress  itself  on  the  heathen  mind,  but  also  its  real  in- 
fluence even  upon  some  of  the  most  respectable  of  its  own  pro- 
fessors. Dr.  Colenso  is,  or  was,  an  Anglican  Bishop  in  Natal ; 
a  man  far  beyond  the  reach  of  any  imputation  on  the  score  of 
personal  character,  highly  intelligent,  full  of  honest  zeal,  and 
probably  as  superior  to  most  of  his  companions  in  moral  worth, 
as  he  certainly  is  in  intellect  and  attainments.  Towards  this 
gentleman  personally,  it  would  be  irrational  to  entertain  any 
but  kind  and  respectful  feelings.  Yet  he  is  perhaps  the  most 
striking  example  in  the  whole  history  of  Protestant  missions, 
of  the  withering  influence  of  a  religion  which  could  make  such 
a  man,  full  of  ability  and  good  intentions,  avow  opinions  such 
as  that  which  we  are  about  to  notice. 

Dr.  Colenso,  embarrassed  by  the  obstinate  adherence  to 
polygamy  which  he  observed  among  the  Kaffirs,  came  to  the 
resolution,  after  conference,  it  is  said,  with  other  Anglican 
authorities  of  the  highest  rank,  to  remove  the  difficulty  by  a 
process  which,  though  adopted  in  a  well-known  case  by  Luther 
and  Melancthon,  had  not  previously  received  the  official  sanc- 
tion of  Anglican  bishops.  As  polygamy  would  not  yield  to 
Protestantism,  Dr.  Colenso  agreed  to  consider  polygamy  a 
"  scriptural"  mode  of  existence.  Here  are  his  own  words. 

"  1  must  confess  that  I  feel  very  strongly  that  the  usual  prac- 
tice of  enforcing  the  separation  of  wives  from  their  husbands, 
upon  their  conversion  to  Christianity,  is  quite  unwarrantable, 
and  opposed  to  the  plain  teaching  of  our  Lord"  And  then  he 
proves,  of  course  from  the  Bible,  that  polygamy  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  the  all-holy  religion  of  the  Gospel.  Here  is  the 
proof.  "  What  is  the  use,"  he  asks,  "  of  our  reading  to  them 
(the  heathen)  the  Bible  stories  of  Abraham,  Israel,  and  David, 
with  their  many  wives?" 

One  should  have  thought  it  easy  enough  to  explain  to  them, 
as  St.  Paul  did,  that  the  New  Law  not  only  proposes  a  higher 
standard  of  holiness  than  the  Old,  because  the  incarnation  of 
the  Sou  of  God  has  completely  changed  man's  relation  to  his 

*  Journals  of  Archdeacon  Merriman,  pp.  37,  52, 116, 178, 185 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  635 

Creator,  but  gives  power,  through  the  Sacraments  of  the 
Precious  Blood,  to  attain  it;  and  that  while  the  prophet  of 
Israel  permitted  divorce  to  the  Jews,  "by  reason  of  the  hard- 
ness of  their  hearts,"  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  dissuaded 
Christians  even  from  marriage.  But  the  awful  sanctity  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus  is  "foolishness"  in  the  eyes  of  men  who  know 
it  to  be  unattainable  by  themselves,  and  who  do  not  blush  to 
claim  for  the  Christian  a  licence  greater  than  that  which  was 
a  reproach  even  to  the  Jew.  St.  Francis  or  St.  Ignatius  is  a 
portent  as  hateful  to  the  Protestant,  as  St.  Paul  was  to  the 
Greek.  When  our  Lord  said  of  the  counsel  of  virginity.  "  All 
men  take  not  this  word,  but  they  to  whom  it  is  given"*  we 
know  for  whom  he  reserved,  in  all  ages,  the  angelic  gift. 

But  Dr.  Colenso  was  not  without  support  in  his  view  of 
polygamy.  "The  whole  body  of  American  missionaries  in 
JBurrnah,"  he  observes,  "  after  some  difference  of  opinion  .  .  . 
came  to  the  unanimous  decision  to  admit  in  future  polygamists 
of  old  standing  to  Communion,  but  not  to  offices  ^in  the 
Church :"  as  if  the  last  were  a  greater  privilege  than  the  first ! 
"  I  must  say  this  appears  to  me  the  only  right  and  reasonable 
course."f 

Yet  Mr.  East  assures  us,  and  we  hardly  needed  the  assur- 
ance, that  "  intimately  connected  with  polygamy,  and  in  part 
at  least  resulting  from  it,  is  the  degradation  of  woman  in 
Africa.";):  It  is  certainly  a  remarkable  fact,  that  if  any  unusu- 
ally strange  doctrine  is  announced  among  Protestant  mission- 
aries, any  new  outrage  upon  the  Incarnation,  as  when  the 
Anglican  bishops  in  India  solicited  an  alliance  with  the  Syrian 
Nestorians ;  or  upon  the  Blessed  Eucharist ;  or  the  Sacrament 
of  Holy  Baptism ;  or  the  Creeds ;  or  the  Mother  of  God ;  or 
the  Sacrament  of  Marriage ;  it  is  sure  to  proceed,  not  from  the 
unlettered  Baptist  or  Wesleyan,  but  from  some  highly  respect- 
able minister  of  the  Anglican  Church.§ 

Dr.  Colenso  speaks  favorably  of  the  Kaffir  character,  and  of 
their  "faithfulness  and  honesty,"  as  Levaillant||  and  other 
early  writers  on  South  Africa  were  accustomed  to  do.  But  it 

*  S.  Matt.  xix.  11.  « 

f  Ten  Weeks  in  Natal,  &c.,  by  J.  W.  Colenso,  D.D.,  Lord  Bishop  of  the 
Diocese,  pp.  140,  141. 

{  Western  Africa,  p.  50. 

§  Of  Dr.  Colenso's  later  writings  it  need  only  be  observed  here,  that  it  was 
in  making  the  attempt,  with  unquestionable  zeal  and  sincerity,  to  convert  the 
heathen  by  the  Bible,  that  this  Anglican  bishop  was  led  to  doubt  its  truth. 
It  had  been  better  for  him  not  to  put  his  hand  to  a  work  to  which  he  was  not 
called,  nor  to  expose  himself  to  the  reproach,  which  applies  to  others  also, 
"This  man  began  to  build,  and  was  not  able  to  finish."  St.  Luke,  xiv.  30. 

\  Voyage  dans  I'Interieur  de  VAfrique,  1780-1785. 


636  CHAPTER  VII. 

seems  to  be  the  mission  of  Protestantism,  by  the  testimony  of 
its  own  agents,  to  rob  the  heathen  even  of  his  natural  virtues. 
Dr.  Colenso  declares,  and  we  may  safely  trust  so  intelligent 
a  witness,  that  the  Kaffirs  display  "traces  of  a  religious 
knowledge,  however  originally  derived,  which  their  ancestors 
possessed  long  before  the  arrival  of  the  missionaries."  Yet 
Protestantism,  with  every  human  advantage  on  its  side,  could 
only  succeed  in  exciting  the  antipathy  of  these  vigorous  bar- 
barians ;  and  Dr.  Colenso  himself  mentions  a  chief,  who,  after 
listening  with  courteous  patience  to  a  sermon,  inquired  eagerly, 
the  moment  the  preacher's  voice  ceased,  "  How  do  you  make 
gunpowder?"* 

The  only  other  statement  which  we  need  borrow  from  this 
writer,  is  an  expression  of  opinion,  founded  no  doubt  upon 
personal  observation,  which  is  not  likely  to  be  acceptable  to 
Protestant  missionaries.  "  Wives  often  ruin  a  mission,"  he 
says,  "  by  their  tempers  and  animosities,  breaking  up  the  har- 
monious action  of  their  husbands."f 

In  1856,  that  we  may  continue  the  chain  of  witnesses,  Mr. 
Andersson,  a  friend  and  associate  of  the  missionaries,  gives  such 
examples  as  the  following  of  the  complete  nullity  of  their 
efforts.  Of  Schepmansdorf,  in  the  country  of  the  Narnaquas, 
he  says :  "  Although  Mr.  Bam  (the  missionary)  had  used  every 
effort  to  civilize  and  christianize  his  small  community,  all  his 
endeavors  had  hitherto  proved  nearly  abortive."  Of  the  Da- 
maras,  again,  this  is  his  account :  "  Mr.  Halm,  who  is  liked  and 
respected  by  the  natives,  never  succeeded,  as  he  himself  told 
me,  in  converting  a  single  individual." 

Speaking  of  the  nominal  converts,  under  all  classes  of  mis- 
sionaries, Mr.  Andersson  says,  "  So  long  as  they  are  fed  and 
clothed,  they  are  willing  enough  to  congregate  round  the 
missionary,  and  to  listen  to  his  exhortation.  The  moment, 
however,  the  food  and  clothing  are  discontinued,  their  feigned 
attachment  to  his  person  and  to  his  doctrines  is  at  an  end,  and 
they  do  not  scruple  to  treat  their  benefactor  with  ingratitude, 
and  to  load  him  with  abuse."J  Such  a  history,  uniform  in 
every  land,  and  for  every  race,  sounds  like  an  echo  of  the 
prophetic  malediction :  "  You  shall  be  as  an  oak  with  the  leaves 

*  P.  117. 

f  P.  52.  It  is  curious  to  see  this  confirmed,  in  1862,  by  a  female  agent  of  th« 
Church  Missionary  Society.  "  She  who  has  not  the  inward  adorning  St.  Peter 
Bpeaks  of,  proves  rather  a  hindrance  to  her  husband,  especially  when  con- 
nected with  mission  work."  Report,  p.  29.  The  writer,  whom  no  missionary 
had  yet  espoused,  appears  to  intimate  that  she  would  prove  any  thing  but  a 
hindrance,  since  she  could  teach  "  fancy  work  and  plain  sewing,  as  well  aa 
hymns  and  songs." 

J  Lake  Ngami,  &c.,  by  Charles  John  Andersson,  ch.  ii.,  p.  27 ;  ch.  ix.,  p.  103. 


MISSIONS   IN   AFRICA.  637 

falling  off,  and  as  a  garden  without  water.  And  your  strength 
shall  be  as  the  ashes  of  tow,  and  your  work  as  a  spark."* 

Five  yqars  later,  to  anticipate  a  case  which  exactly  resem- 
bles that  of  the  Nam  aquas  and  Damaras,  we  are  told  that  the 
Makololos,  in  spite  of  their  profitable  intercourse  with  Protest- 
ant missionaries,  had  just  robbed  a  party  of  them  of  every 
thing  which  they  possessed,  and  driven  them  out  of  the  country. 
Mrs.  Price,  the  wife  of  one  of  the  ministers,  "  was  buried  under 
an  isolated  tree  in  the  immense  plain  of  the  Mabobe;"  and, 
"  after  the  party  left,  the  Makololos  disinterred  the  body,  and 
cut  off  a  portion  of  the  face  to  exhibit  in  their  town."*)'  Such 
was  the  progress  which  the  missionaries  had  made,  during  the 
interval,  in  acquiring  the  reverence  of  their  African  disciples. 

In  1857,  the  Rev.  Joseph  Shooter  had  arrived  at  the  con- 
clusion, suggested  by  the  unvarying  experience  of  half  a 
century,  that  "  we  must  not  estimate  the  results  of  missionary 
labor  merely  by  the  number  of  converts."  Yet  any  other 
estimate  would  apparently  be  still  less  acceptable,  for  he  adds 
that  long  observation  of  their  character  only  "tended  to  weaken 
his  confidence  in  the  religious  professions  t>f  this  people.":): 

In  the  same  year,  Dr.  Armstrong,  an  Anglican  bishop, 
confirms  all  the  other  witnesses,  but  with  special  reference  to 
the  misadventures  of  his  own  religious  body.  "  If  the  Kaffirs," 
he  says,  "  abound  in  the  diocese  of  Grahamstown  by  thousands, 
the  Church  of  England  has  yet  done  nothing  for  them."  The 
representatives  of  that  institution  were  fully  occupied,  it  ap- 
pears, in  dealing  with  the  domestic  phenomena  which  the 
Establishment  is  now  exhibiting  to  the  Kaffirs,  after  offering 
them  to  the  contemplation  of  the  heathen  in  every  other  land. 
"  Port  Elisabeth,  where  I  first  touch  my  diocese,"  observes 
Dr.  Armstrong,  "is  full  of  Church  troubles."  He  adds,  indeed, 
as  "might  be  expected,  that  "many  bright  features  present 
themselves,"  and  then  reiterates  the  accustomed  lament,  "  but 
there  is  something  sad  in  beginning  with  internal  strife." 

Dr.  Armstrong  found,  like  the  rest  of  his  brethren,  that  the 
end  corresponded  with  beginning,  and  the  "  bright  features" 
became  clouded.  A  little  later  he  had  to  deplore  "  the  seces- 
sion" of  part  of  his  flock,  who  adopted  this  mode  of  protesting 
against  a  clergyman  who  preached  in  a  surplice ;  and  the  event 
was  the  more  painful,  because,  as  his  biographer  remarks,  "he 
made  many  efforts  to  retain  the  dissidents,  but  in  vain."  At 
Uitenhage  also,  he  found  it  expedient  to  suspend  one  of  his 
clergy  for  a  dispute  about  "  the  offertory."  Such  anecdotes,  no 


Isaias  i.  30,  81. 

The  Times,  May  2,  1861. 

The  Kafirs  of  Natal  and  the  Zulu  Country,  app.,  pp.  369,  371 


638  CHAPTER  VII. 

doubt,  are  trivial ;  but  in  speaking  of  the  Church  of  England 
as  a  missionary  body,  the  most  industrious  historian  searches 
in  vain  for  graver  materials. 

Dr.  Armstrong's  principal  clergy,  like  Heber's,  seem  to  have 
been  German  Lutherans,  with  an  infusion  of  English  Wesley  ans, 
both  classes  accepting  the  "  orders"  which  he  was  able  to  offer 
them.  Yet  he  suffered  much  annoyance,  we  are  told,  from 
"the  opposition  of  the  Wesleyans,"  as  Ileber  and  his  suc- 
cessors did  from  the  hostility  of  the  Lutherans.  And  mean- 
while the  heathen  looked  on,  and  formed  their  conception  of 
the  nature  of  Protestantism. 

"The  reports,"  Dr.  Armstrong  says, — meaning,  probably, 
the  private  as  distinguished  from  the  official  reports, — "  do  not 
really  speak  of  many  converts.  There  are  many  listeners.  A 
chapel  will  be  full  every  Sunday,  and  yet  but  very  few  con- 
verted and  baptized.  As  a  fact  there  are  very  few  Christian 
Kaffirs."* 

The  Wesleyans  were  even  more  candid  than  Dr.  Armstrong ; 
for  Sir  Benjamin  D'Urban  relates,  that  "they  all  acknowledged 
to  him,  that  they  could  not  flatter  themselves  they  had  ever 
made  a  lasting  salutary  impression  upon  one  of  the  race  of 
Kaffirs." 

In  1857,  Dr.  Livingstone  published  his  interesting  work  on 
South  Africa.  From  such  a  writer  we  expect  the  truth,  and 
the  expectation  will  not  be  disappointed.  The  first  "  element 
of  weakness"  which  he  noticed  in  his  fellow-missionaries,  was 
their  determination  not  to  venture  beyond  the  tranquil  borders 
"  of  the  Cape  colony  itself."  "  When  we  hear,"  he  remarks, 
"  an  agent  of  one  sect  urging  his  friends  at  home  to  aid  him 
quickly  to  occupy  some  unimportant  nook,  because,  if  it  is  not 
speedily  laid  hold  of,  he  will  '  not  have  room  for  the  sole  of  his 
foot,'  one  cannot  help  longing  that  both  he  and  his  friends 
would  direct  their  noble  aspirations  to  the  millions  of  untaught 
heathen  in  the  regions  beyond,  and  no  longer  continue  to  con- 
vert the  extremity  of  the  continent  into,  as  it  were,  a  dam  of 
benevolence." 

Dr.  Livingstone,  with  the  freedom  from  prejudice  which  is  the 
privilege  of  manly  natures,  proposes  this  question  to  his  readers: 
"  Can  our  wise  men  tell  us  why  the  former  mission  stations 
(primitive  monasteries)  were  self-supporting,  rich,  and  flourish- 
ing, as  pioneers  of  civilization  and  agriculture  from  which  we 
even  now  reap  benefits,  and  modern  mission  stations  are  mere 


*  Memoir,  by  the  Rev.  J.  J.  Carter,  pp.  264,  269,  281,  307,  347,  381.  Cf, 
Travels  in  Eastern  Africa,  by  Nathaniel  Isaacs ;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  265.  (2d 
edition). 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  639 

pauper  establishments,  without  that  permanence  or  ability  to 
be  self-supporting  which  they  possessed?"  We  may  be  allowed 
to  regret  that  a  writer  of  so  much  integrity  and  good  sense  did 
not  attempt  to  answer  his  own  question. 

Of  the  actual  and  final  results  of  the  labors  of  sixty  years  in 
South  Africa,  Dr.  Livingstone  gives  this  cautious  but  impressive 
estimate :  "  Protestant  missionaries,  of  every  denomination,  all 
agree  in  one  point,  that  no  mere  profession  of  Christianity  is 
sufficient  to  entitle  the  converts  to  the  Christian  name."*  It 
is  impossible,  in  presence  of  such  facts,  to  think  without  horror 
of  the  multitude  of  sacrilegious  baptisms  which,  in  Africa  as 
elsewhere,  appear  to  be  the  sole  fruit  of  Protestant  missions/)- 

To  return  to  Dr.  Livingstone.  If  any  Protestant  missionary 
might  have  hoped  for  success,  we  know  not  one  of  whom  it 
might  be  predicated  with  greater  confidence.  Courageous,  ex- 
perienced, and  persevering — remarkable  among  his  colleagues 
for  sincerity,  moderation,  and  good  sense — this  respected  trav- 
eller has  for  some  years  applied  his  uncommon  energy  to  one 
object.  Yet  we  are  assured  by  his  own  friends  that  he  has 
utterly  failed,  and  that  it  is  time  to  confess  the  miscarriage  of 
his  hopeless  enterprise.  Mr.  Andersson  had  already  foreseen 
this  result  in  1860.  Referring  to  new  outrages  by  the  Mako- 
lolo,  whom  he  calls  "  that  scourge  of  central  South  Africa,"  he 
added  this  comment:  "This  was  the  result  of  all  Dr.  Living- 
stone's earnest  endeavors  to  dissuade  these  people  from  com- 
mitting depredations  on  their  neighbors.  All  their  fine  prom- 
ises to  that  noble  explorer,  with  their  professions  of  peaceful 
dispositions,  were,  as  we  here  see,  mere  delusions,  to  use  the 
lightest  word,  on  both  sides.  I  very  much  fear  that  this  tribe 
have  two  faces  for  Dr.  Livingstone."  Mr.  Andersson  admits 
that  "  he  possesses  very  great  influence  over  them,"  by  the 
force  of  his  character,  and  yet  heads  this  very  section  of  his 
book  with  the  significant  title,  "Missionary  Impotence  "% 

Three  years  later,  the  whole  truth  is  confessed  in  the  Exam- 
iner, on  the  authority  of  "  a  letter  of  a  melancholy  character 
from  Dr.  Livingstone."  That  letter,  we  are  told,  "  described 
the  approaching  fall,  if  there  really  ever  was  a  rise,  of  the  East 
African  mission.  .  .  .  .'It  amply  verifies  our  anticipations.  We 


*  Missionary  Travels,  ch.  vi.,  pp.  110, 117 ;  ch.  ix.,  p.  190. 

f  In  1863,  after  constant  and  friendly  intercourse  with  the  missionaries  dur- 
ing eight  years,  Mr.  Baldwin  reveals  his  opinion  of  the  real  character  of  their 
disciples,  by  recording  that  he  unwittingly  gave  offence  to  one  of  their  teachers, 
by  refusing  to  " shake  hands  with  a  parcel  of  his  baptized,  singing  Jieathens" 
African  Hunting  from  Natal  to  the  Zambesi,  by  W.  C.  Baldwin,  Esq.,  F.R.G.S., 
ch.  ix.,  p.  369. 

\.  The  Okavango  River,  by  Charles  John  Andersson,  ch.  xviL,  p.  194  (1861). 


64:0  CHAPTER  VII. 

were  promised  trade,  and  there  is  no  trade,  although  we  have  a 
consul  at  five  hundred  pounds  a  year,"  who  is  also  a  mission- 
ary. "  We  were  promised  converts  to  the  Gospel,  and  not  one 

has  been  made In  a  word,  the  thousands  subscribed  by 

the  universities,  and  the  thousands  contributed  by  the  govern- 
ment, have  been  productive  only  of  the  most  fatal  results." 

What  follows  cannot  be  read  without  pain,  since  it  reflects 
upon  the  upright  and  well-meaning  man  by  whose  advice  these 
fruitless  projects  were  undertaken.  The  natives  on  the  banks  of 
the  Rosuma  tired  on  his  party,  and  Dr.  Livingstone,  who  went 
among  them  as  a  preacher  of  the  Christian  religion,  says,  u  In- 
stead of  running  away,  we  returned  the  fire."  "  Here,  as  he 
had  done  on  the  river  Shire,"  continues  the  Examiner,  u  we 
find  our  missionary  enacting  the  part  of  Mahomet,  without  his 
success."  The  whole  scheme,  it  is  added,  "  is  not  worth  the 
mission  or  the  consulship,"  and  u  we  must  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  time  has  arrived  when  the  hopeless  enterprise 
ought  to  be  relinquished."* 

Let  us  return  to  the  south,  and  resume  the  chain  of  witnesses. 
In  1858,  the  Rev.  W.  Ellis,  who  could  afford  to  be  candid  about 
South  Africa,  because  it  was  not  his  own  field  of  labor,  though 
he  describes  each  separate  Hottentot  station  at  which  lie 
preached  in  language  which  would  be  absurd  if  applied  to  an 
average  English  parish,  forgets  at  last  to  sustain  his  artificial 
song,  and  falls  into  ordinary  prose.  The  "downward  tendency" 
of  the  whole  race,  he  admits,  is  too  evident  to  be  denied,  in 
spite  of  the  legion  of  missionaries  who  have  dwelt  among  them. 
"  Without  a  change,  they  must  either  become  mere  hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water  to  others,  or,  as  a  race,  gradually 
melt  away."f  Is  it  possible  to  admit  more  candidly  that  Prot- 
estantism can  do  nothing  to  avert  their  fate  ? 

In  the  same  year,  the  Rev.  H.  Calderwood  gives  this  report 
of  the  Kaffirs:  "If  we  view  the  Kaffirs  as  a  nation,  they  may 
be  said  to  have  refused  the  Gospel.  The  Kaffirs,  as  a  people, 
are  just  as  uncivilized  and  degraded,  their  customs  are  as  impure 
and  cruel,  and  they  are  apparently  as  unmoved,  as  they  were  on 
the  day  when  Yan  der  Kemp  first  stood  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tyurne."J  Nor  does  even  this  fatal  testimony  reveal  the  whole 
truth,  since  Captain  Drayson,  who  constantly  praises  their  ex- 
cellent natural  qualities,  "  their  honesty,  truth,  and  disinterest- 
ed friendship,"  while  he  laments  that  they  have  now  become 


*  Quoted  in  the  Times,  January  20,  1863. 

f  Three  Visits  to  Madagascar,  by  the  Rev.  Win.  Ellis,,  ch.  ix.,  p.  249 
(1858). 
\  Caffres  and  Caffre  Missions,  ch.  vii.,  p.  96. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA. 

"  confirmed  rascals,"  adds,  "  but  I  doubt  whether  we  have  not 
made  them  so  ourselves."* 

And  so  notorious  is  this  dismal  result  of  all  the  English  mis- 
sions in  South  Africa,  including  the  operations  of  nearly  twenty 
different  sects,  that  in  1850,  President  Pretorius,  of  the  Trans- 
vaal Republic,  could  thus  openly  jest  at  them  in  a  public 
speech  :  "  It  was  his  decided  opinion,  that  the  emissaries  of  the 
London  Missionary  Society  have  done,  and  continue  to  do,  so 
much  harm  and  so  little  good  among  the  natives,  that  it  has 
become  absolutely  necessary  for  the  Raad  to  decide,  whether  ,or 
no  their  continued  labors,  and  even  their  presence,  to  the  north 
of  Yaal  river,  shall  be  longer  tolerated."  It  is  true  that  the 
English  writer  who  quotes  this  speech  angrily  retorts,  that  the 
Protestant  Boers  "  are,  as  a  class,  far  more  dangerous  to  civiliza- 
tion than  even  the  irreclaimable  savages  of  Moffat  and  Co."f 

It  would  be  idle  to  offer  even  a  word  of  comment  upon  such 
a  history,  in  which,  though  every  sentence  is  penned  by  Prot- 
estant writers,  we  read  only  an  unvarying  record  of  covetous- 
ness,  immorality,  worldliness,  confusion,  and  failure.  St.  Paul 
has  written  the  same  history,  but  in  fewer  words.  When  the 
Apostle  enumerates  "  the  works  of  the  flesh,"  he  seems  to  sum 
up,  in  one  brief  sentence,  the  principal  incidents  in  all  Protest- 
ant missions:  " uncleanness,  luxury,  contentions,  emulations, 
quarrels,  dissensions,  sects."|  Such,  as  we  have  seen  in  every 
land,  are  their  only  fruits ;  and  it  is  to  gather  them  once  more 
in  a  new  field,  that  vast  sums  of  money,  which  might  have  al- 
leviated the  lot  of  thousands  of  our  heathen  population  at  home, 
have  here  been  expended,  during  three  quarters  of  a  century. 
Two  races  of  pagan  men  have  in  this  case  been  submitted, 
during  three  whole  generations,  to  all  the  influences  which 
Protestantism  could  exert  upon  them  ;  the  one  "  have  refused 
the  Gospel,"  the  other,  wherever  they  have  accepted  the  in- 
structions of  a  Protestant  missionary,  have  only  become  "  the 
most  idle  and  the  most  worthless  of  their  nation."  If  it  were 
possible  to  admit  that  the  agents  in  such  a  work  are,  as  they 
assure  their  disciples,  the  interpreters  of  Divine  truth,  and  of 
truth  "  reformed"  by  a  kind  of  second  revelation,  the  supposition 
would  perhaps  involve  the  most  frightful  satire  upon  the  God 
of  Christians  which  the  subtlest  impiety  has  ever  conceived. 

It  is  time  to  quit  a  subject  which  is  full  only  of  regret  and 
humiliation,  arid  to  endeavor  to  seek  more  grateful  scenes  in 

*  Sporting  Scenes  amongst  the  Kaffirs  of  8.  Africa,  by  Captain  Alfred  W. 
Drayson,  R.A. ;  ch.  xiii.,  p.  235. 
f  The  Cape  and  Natal  News,  Jan.  31, 1859,  p.  77. 
|  Galat.  v.  19. 

41 


64:2  CHAPTER   VII. 

• 

other  lands.     But  first  we  may  say  a  word  in  conclusion,  npon 
Catholic  missions  in  South  Africa. 

A  Protestant  writer  has  observed,  with  allusion  to  the  facts 
of  which  we  have  now  completed  the  survey,  that  in  South 
Africa  "  the  Roman  Catholic  community,  until  these  few  last 
years,  were  a  proscribed  people.  By  an  old  law  of  India,  Jesuits 
and  Roman  priests  were  to  be  forcibly  apprehended,  and  im- 
mediately deported."*  Bishop  Devereux,  Yicar  Apostolic  of 
Southeastern  Africa,  notices  the  same  fact,  in  1850,  in  ex- 
plaining the  absence  of  Catholic  missionaries  from  these  regions 
during  the  Dutch  and  English  occupation.  "  These  provinces,'5 
he  observes,  "  have  been  hitherto,  so  to  speak,  a  sealed  book 
for  Europe.  First,  the  Dutch  East  India  Company  forbade, 
throughout  the  whole  colony,  the  exercise  of  our  religion,  en- 
forcing the  interdict  by  severe  penalties.  The  English  domi- 
nation succeeded,  which,  after  manifesting  an  almost  equally 
intolerant  spirit,  concedes,  even  at  the  present  day,  only  a 
reluctant  consent  to  our  miiristry."t  It  was  not  until  1838  that 
the  existing  mission,  in  spite  of  the  frowns  of  hostile  officials, 
was  constituted  by  Bishop  Griffith,  the  first  Yicar  Apostolic. 
For  some  years  the  insufficient  number  of  the  missionaries,  and 
the  necessity  of  attending  to  the  wants  of  the  Catholic  popula- 
tion, forbade  all  attempts  to  organize  systematic  efforts  for  the 
conversion  of  the  heathen.  The  "  children  of  the  household" 
had  the  first  claim.  In  1855,  Dr.  Colenso,  who  evidently  does 
not  share  the  vulgar  prejudices  of  his  order,  and  is  too  generous 
to  employ  their  language,  appears  to  have  visited  the  Catholic 
bishop  in  Maritzburg,  "  a  very  gentlemanly  Frenchman,  with 
a  benignant  expression  of  countenance,  and  an  appearance  of 
sincerity  and  earnestness  about  him  which  I  was  rejoiced  to 
witness.  He  told  me  that  there  were  not  yet  any  missionaries 
of  his  Church  among  the  natives  ;  but  he  was  about,  without 
delay,  to  set  some  at  work."  In  1856  the  project  was  executed, 
and  the  mission  of  St.  Michael  opened  in  Kaffraria.  In  ISa^, 
the  Rev.  H.  Calderwood,  writing  from  the  same  part  of  the 
country,  says,  "The  Roman  Catholics  are  on  the  increase. 
There  are  two  bishops  and  a  number  of  priests,  who  are  able 
and  energetic  men.  It  is  quite  clear  that  Protestants  are  not  U 
have  it  all  their  own  way  in  South  Africa."^:  Lastly,  Mr.  Colt 
very  candidly  intimates  what  the  final  issue  of  the  new  Catholic 
mission  is  likely  to  be,  when  he  says,  "The  Catholics  arc 
steadily  progressing  in  numbers,  and  make,  I  verily  believe 

*  The  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  by  John  C.  Chase,  Esq.,  Secretary  to  the  Societj 
for  Exploring  Central  Africa,  p.  138. 
f  Annals,  vol.  xii.,  p.  12. 
i  Gaffres  and  Caffre  Missions,  ch.  1.,  p.  12. 


MISSIONS  IN   AFRICA.  643 

more  genuine  converts  among  the  colored  classes  than  any 
other  sect."* 

We  may  now  quit  Africa,  not  without  the  consolatory  belief 
that  the  work  of  true  conversion  has  at  length  begun,  and  that 
a  later  annalist  will  record  the  same  apostolic  triumphs  in 
this  land  which  we  have  already  traced  in  so  many  others,  f 
Let  the  reader  compare,  for  his  own  instruction,  the  historical 
facts  which  we  have  now  imperfectly  reviewed ;  the  warfare 
of  the  martyrs  of  North  Africa,  of  Egypt,  and  Abyssinia, — nev- 
er more  truly  apostles  than  when,  like  our  Lord  at  Bethsaida  or 
St.  Paul  at  Antioch,  they  seemed  for  a  season  to  preach  in  vain, 
— and  the  later  toils  of  the  generous  men  who  in  our  own  day 
have  succeeded  both  to  their  office  and  their  gifts,  with  the 
narrative  of  turpitude  and  confusion  which  we  have  just  closed  ; 
and  let  him  apply  once  again  the  Divine  rule,  By  their  fruits 
ye  shall  know  them.  And  that  he  may  comprehend  the  whole 
lesson  which  this  history  contains,  let  him  note  in  this  case  also 
the  accustomed  fact,  that  the  agents  of  the  sects  have  not  only 
failed, — in  Africa,  as  in  India,  Ceylon,  and  the  Antipodes, — but 
that  they  have  failed,  in  spite  of  the  advantage  which  in  all 
these  countries  they  enjoyed  as  the  representatives  of  an  irre- 
sistible power,  and  the  dispensers  of  almost  unlimited  wealth. 
Silver  and  gold  they  had,  but  it  could  not  purchase  a  single 
soul,  for  even  the  pagan  mocked  .the  preachers  who  came  to 
him  with  such  gifts,  when  they  saw  that  they  could  give  him 
nothing  better.  The  Catholic  apostles,  penetrated  with  other 
truths  and  holier  maxims,  gave  the  life  which  was  all  they 
could  call  their  own,  and  gave  it  with  more  than  royal  munifi 
cence,  content  that  a  later  generation  should  reap  the  fruits  of 
a  sacrifice  of  which  they  tasted  only  the  gall  and  vinegar.  And 
they  did  not  offer  it. in  vain.  Already  from  the  north  of  Africa 
the  Cross  has  begun  to  cast  its  healing  shadow  towards  the 
mountains  which  bend  down  to  receive  it,  and  the  deserts  which 

*  The  Cape  and  the  Kafirs,  ch.  ix.,  p.  155. 

f  It  is  worthy  of  observation,  and  a  striking  example  of  the  power  which 
Catholic  missionaries  alone  exert,  that  three  of  that  very  race,  the  Kaffirs,  with 
whom  Protestantism  has  proved  so  impotent,  were  converted  on  board  the 
Austrian  frigate  Novara,  and  are  now  sailors  on  board  the  Emperor's  yacht. 
Yet  "  they  were  prisoners  sentenced  for  several  years"  by  the  English  author- 
ities at  the  Cape.  •'*  They  of  course  understood,  at  their  embarkation,  only  their 
own  singular  mother-tongue ;  yet  the  chaplain  of  the  expedition,  the  Rev.  E. 
Marochini,  after  having  made  himself  acquainted  with  their  idiom,  succeeded 
in  instructing  these  black  youths,  by  means  of  their  own  language,  in  the  doc- 
trines of  Christianity,  and,  by  degrees,  imparted  some  knowledge  of  the  Italian 

and  German  languages  ; and  such  progress  did  his  three  pupils  make, 

that,  on  our  return  to  Trieste,  they  were  so  far  prepared  as  to  be  fit  for  recep- 
tion, by  baptism,  into  the  Christian  community."  Scherzer,  Voyage  of  the 
Jfovara,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  211. 


644  CHAPTER   VII. 

smile  at  its  approach  ;  and  from  the  Kile  to  the  Ocean,  from 
Egypt  to  Morocco,  the  disciples  of  Islam  are  hiding  tljeir  faces 
before  the  mysterious  Sign  which  tells  them  that  their  hour  has 
come.  From  the  East  also  a  voice  is  heard  which  reaches  even 
to  the  West,  and  is  echoed  from  the  mountains  of  Ethiopia  and 
the  cities  of  Abyssinia,  across  the  burning  plains  of  the  Soudan, 
to  the  rivers  of  Senegambiaand  the  parched  solitudes  of  Angola 
and  Benguela ;  and  if  in  the  South,  long  abandoned  to  unfruit- 
ful husbandmen,  who  sow  but  never  reap,  and  whose  labor  is 
as  unprofitable  as  their  repose,  the  field  seems  to  be  preoccu- 
pied; yet  here  also  the  Church  will  accomplish  the  victory  of 
which  we  have  lately  followed  the  "irresistible  march  in  all  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific,  and  having  silenced  the  discordant  cries 
of  struggling  and  conflicting  sects,  will  at  length  intone  the 
hymn  which  shall  announce  to  heaven  and  earth  that  the  curse 
is  removed  from  Africa,  and  that  the  blood  of  her  martyrs  has 
not  been  shed  in  vain. 


END   OF   VOL.  L 


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